Time with Violet

Violet and I got out for a little walk, and we drove to the Iron Horse Bridge trail for a change of scenery.

I was shocked by the amount of water still in our Santa Clara River!

It wasn't deep, but it sure was wide.

Pretty sunset behind the river, under the bridge.

It was a neat moment together.

With the lovely cooler June weather we've been enjoying, Violet has been able to have a couple of more mounted archery lessons. 

At Gilchrist Farm, the baby goats and rabbits are so cute! Violet went into the petting zoo area with the goats to check out the baby bunnies in their hutches.

 

This will be her last lesson for a while, as we know the heat is coming.

Nan and Pop are Here!!

 For the first time in nearly 5 years, we're so happy to have Nan and Pop here for a visit! It's been a l-o-n-g time, due to the pandemic's travel restrictions, but wow, it is great to have them with us once again.

Violet has been wanting to visit the poppy fields in Lancaster, and Sue was up for an adventure, so after school on Wednesday, we headed north.

There weren't just poppies - beautiful yellow and purple and lavender wildflowers mingled with the orange, for a gorgeous combination of colors.

To be honest, it wasn't as "orange" as we saw a few years ago, but still striking and worth the drive. 

Interestingly, we saw zero flowers at the actual AV Poppy Reserve, where you have to pay to park. All these flowers were from our first stop, a few miles east of the reserve.

We continued west toward the 5 freeway, making it a real adventure through some scenic roads. See the orange field in the distance here?

Happy Birthday to Gord! Wednesday was his birthday, and we celebrated with lunch out at the Habit and a father/son tool-shopping trip.

We also took Nan and Pop to Gilchrist Farms, so they could see Violet do her mounted archery. Pop made some friends with the farm dogs, and he loved the old tractors they have.

From D&D game room to bedroom! We're so blessed to have this extra space, even if it really needs to be redone completely.

Violet Fun

While I was babysitting Ellie on Friday, Grandpa took Violet to her mounted archery lesson. 

We always appreciate it when Grandpa brings his good cameras out!

And on Sunday, Violet went with them on a whale watch, as her Christmas gift. They saw hundreds of dolphins and they even saw a whale!
 

Week in Review

Sue had several friends over for a holiday gathering Saturday evening. It was great catching up, and we ate well!

Violet was back at Gilchrist last week. Unfortunately, not long after this photo, her horse spooked, and reared and took off, and Vi landed on her bum. She was in a lot of pain, but is OK. After missing a couple of days of school, she's back now, though still a bit sore.

Violet and Stace had their vision appointments. Violet tried out contacts for the first time, but decided to stick with her glasses.

In December, our tomato plants are finally producing heavily, just in time for frost to make the fruit drop.

We got our Christmas tree decorated!

We had a nice Advent evening, with a fire and tree-decorating.
 

We also cheered on England in the World Cup, and were sad when they fell to France.

More Archery

With the summer heat mercifully behind us, Violet has been able to get back to her mounted archery lessons.

October is a very busy month at Gilchrist Farm, with lots of harvest/pumpkin festival fun, and the main ground we use has turned into a parking lot. So, Natalie got creative, and created a walking course in the river bed.

Violet's normal horse Dixie didn't take to the course, so Violet got to ride Natalie's horse Poncho this week. He's a pretty boy, and a lot more lively!

You can kind of see one of the targets behind Violet here, on the left side of the stream bed.

We've also been going out to the city's archery range lately too. What a great facility, and free of charge!

Here, Violet is using her new quiver.

I'm very glad she has a hobby she enjoys!
 

Horse Archery Competition

After finishing her final day of elementary school, Violet took part in her first official Horse Archery competition. We drove up Friday evening to the 60-acre ranch between Frazier Park and Ojai, kind of in the middle of nowhere.

On Friday, she got to run through the courses, and we camped for the night on the property. On Saturday morning, Violet got to compete for the first time. Natalie, her instructor, also competed, and brought up Dixie, who Violet always rides.

Violet got a bullseye here! She did so well!

This was a second course, set up like a figure 8, and the competitors had two minutes to go around and choose which targets to go for. Handling the horse was a big part of success here, since it wasn't a simple walk or trot in a straight line.

Violet did so well! She ended up winning the junior division, as she was the only competitor. More impressively, she came in second among three other novice competitors, all adults!
 

The ranch had several big dogs, like most farms, to sound the alarm if any predators came close at night. We camped onsite overnight, and were awakened a couple of times by the dogs barking. 

In the morning, this little guy, who seemed like he didn't belong due to his size, came up to say "hello" and invited himself into our tent! 

Violet had fun, and hopefully we can come up for another competition some time.

Week in Review

Violet is still enjoying her Tuesday afternoons at Gilchrist Farm. This past week, she started with a ground archery lesson using her teacher's quiver for the first time. Violet enjoyed having so many arrows at her hip.

It's baby goat season at Gilchrist, and I was lucky enough to actually watch one be born! That was quite an experience for a suburban girl like me! Here, the mama is licking the newborn clean. The sibling, in the foreground, was trying to walk but couldn't keep its feet under him/her, since it was so new! 
 

Another mama and kid pair. There are at least a dozen babies - all so cute!

Spencer sometimes makes it clear he'd like to sleep on the towels, which requires us to remove a few. This week, Seb was on the lower cupboard, meowing. I figured out that he now wanted to try out the linen cupboard for himself. 

It was Melanie's birthday on Friday, and Violet won't be around to go to her party on Saturday. So, we took her home from school and got lunch together at Loaf, which is becoming one of Violet's faves. 

On Thursday night, Violet went to her final Connect 56 event of the year, a Scooter's Jungle playtime. I can't remember when we last went to Scooter's but it had been a while! 

While she played, Stace and I spent an hour or so at a city block party event in Newhall, which was meant to honor the Cowboy Festival, which again was cancelled because of the difficulties planning large scale events. Stace and I went because the Chamber of Commerce was going to be on hand, with its famous peach cobbler! So, we got our cobbler, listened to live music, and posed at one of the photo opps. 

Birthday Week Fun!

We celebrated Cora's 15th birthday a little early, with dinner and fun on Saturday night with four of her friends. 

Here, she's opening gifts after pizza and wings at Oggi's in Canyon Country.

Three of these are her D&D friends, while the other is Zach, the lone holdout to the D&D obsession.

After dinner, I took the kids to the escape room nearby, where Cora finally got to do the Morgue room, one she's been looking forward to for a long time.

They didn't quite escape, but they had fun trying. The owner, who was closely monitoring them through the monitors, told me Cora is super clever but the others weren't listening to her.

They had a great time, and were talking about doing another room together at some point.

On Sunday, while Cora was at D&D, Violet, Stace and I went for another Quigley walk. I love how it's green everywhere, for now!

After our walk, we went to get doughnuts at Dunkin'. I love the hills surrounding out sweet little valley.

For Cora's real birthday, we had the family over for dinner Wednesday, though I forgot to get any photos. Nick, Melanie and Ellie came, along with Grandma and Grandpa, and we brought in Stone Fire, Cora's favorite.

On the Saturday after her birthday, to close out the festivities, we did a different escape room - the least scary of the set at All Locked Up. It was called The Classroom, and with Violet undoing the final lock, we were able to escape with less than two minutes to go! So fun. And...we have a 15-year-old! A solid teenager in every way.

 

Also this week, Violet was able to do her mounted archery again. This time, her instructor stayed outside the ring, so Violet was in charge of Dixie, along with the arrows. At some points, Dixie was trotting (which wasn't the aim)! Violet will now work on improving her horsemanship, since she has the basics down.