Birthday Flights of Fancy

For Doug's birthday, I bought him a training session at Lookout Mountain Hang Gliding. This is something that's been on his bucket list for years and so I decided that it would be the perfect birthday present for him. We had to be in Chattanooga at 8am which meant getting up at 4am to leave by 5. That was REALLY difficult. When we got there, his group did what they called "Ground School". They took a small training glider to their bunny mountains and learned a bit how to control it and glide and land. That lasted for about 4 hours in which I sat in the car and watched movies on the IPad( gotta love it!) and read my book. The one downside was that there was NO bathroom, so I had to make nice with the bushes in the area. Good thing I am not allergic to poison ivy! After ground school, we broke for lunch with an appt for his tandem flight at 3:15. We headed to the landing zone after lunch to wait for his tandem flight. It's really cool how they do it, they tow them up in ultralights and then release them when they get to 2000 feet. The couldn't do the run and jump thing - it's too difficult with 2 people. They took pictures while they were up there:

They had a camera mounted on the glider so that you got pictures of the whole trip. I got a video too, that I need to upload. He had a blast on the tandem flight - but it was a long day. We finally made it home at 6:30 in enough time to eat something and pass out. I had to get up early the next morning for our first dog show of the season. We had a really nice day out in TN - I would recommend them to anyone who is interested in doing something like this!

Long Time No Blog

Don't I know it! Who has had time to blog with eveything that comes with the summer? It's been a CRAZY busy summer, but it's finally started to calm down and hopefully I will have more time to keep up with my blog.

And also as they say, no news is good news :) So we haven't had any devastating tragedies.... well nothing personally anyway.

Here at work, that's another story. We had a HUGE fire at our plant - I just happened to be there that day and it was pretty scary. Here's a picture from the parking lot:



Let's see what else?

Our nephew is in Afghanistan and so we put a yellow ribbon out on our tree in the hopes it will guide him home safely:



Also this summer, we interred my father's ashes down in Clearwater next to his mother. I think that's what he would have wanted and that means that I can go and put flowers on the grave whenever I am down visiting the inlaws:

RIP Dad



We are still in the process of going through a lot of his stuff. We got the house sold and his trailer. But we still have the van, and a lot of tools that we need to go through. That's been an adventure to say the least.

And last but not least, who would not want to see a picture of my LAZY dog?

Rolex KY 3 Day Event

My friend Luann was kind enough to let me tag along with her to the Rolex KY Three Day Event(www.rk3de.org) held in Lexington KY at the Horsepark. We had such a great trip!!

Our trip started tentatively on Thursday morning, right after the devastating tornadoes hit GA and AL. We saw plenty of tornado damage on our way up 75 north.

We made good time and stopped at Keeneland racetrack on our way to KHP. Watched 2 races( bet on one and lost) but it was so much fun.

The first day, we missed the competition, so we just got our bearings and walked the Cross Country Course. They have the most amazing fences. They are truly a work of art!



This was one of my favorites. I love the detail of the fly on the tongue.

On Friday, we watched the Dressage and did some shopping. Rolex is known for it's fabulous deals on shopping. I got a nice pair of Ariat boots.

Here's a shot of the Dressage Arena:



We also took the opportunity to walk around the park and visit with the racehorses, past and present.

Here's Cigar in his pasture:



He wasn't feeling sociable that day. So we didn't get to really visit with him.

We also visited the grave of John Henry.

Saturday was Cross Country Day! What an extrodinary event that is. It's amazing to see up close and personal. We had so much fun. Then that night we had tickets to a reining event that they were holding at the horsepark. It was Freestyle Reining and it was a blast to watch.

Sunday was Stadium Jumping and the final day. Luann and I got there early to watch the jog, then scoped out our seats in the patron tent. We did manage to get some more shopping in also! The Stadium jumping was fun - but a bit anticlimactic since we already knew who was going to win. There was no way that anyone was going to catch Mary King. But it was historic because no one has ever won both first and second at Rolex.

And you never know who is around you at these events! Luann and I ended up sitting next to, and chatting up, the Chief of Naval Operations for the US. He was such a nice man! We really enjoyed talking to him. We had no idea who he was till we got in the car and googled him :).....

We made it home safely and I am exhausted, but I want to do it all again next year!!!

Introducing - Boutwell's Life of Reilly!

We had a great weekend at the NADAC show and got our second Q, unfortunately it wasn't in the same class as our other Q, but that's ok! A Q is a Q. And, Reilly came in the top 5 in several of his classes which is really a big deal. We generally run in the largest class - the 20 inch or higher, which is also where all those pesky Border Collies and Aussies run. So for us to get it together and do that well was great.

And( drum roll please) for the first time ever in a show, he had a start line stay! AMAZING! Usually he's off and running as soon as I can rip the collar from his neck. But this time he sat and stayed until I released him. Again - AMAZING!

Our next show is an AKC show( ack! literally) and then an ASCA show, same day, same facility - we're just going to hop back and forth and make the ASCA show our base camp.

So since he had to have a NAME and be registered for the AKC show, his official AKC name is now Boutwell's Life of Reilly. Spiffy huh?

Here are some pics from the show. We had a great photographer who did a really good job getting the black dogs to show up well!

Happy New Year Everyone

We had a quiet ringing in of the New Year. Our life has been so hectic since July and my father's illness then passing, we decided to keep the holidays low key.

Doug and I spent NYE just doing some chores and hanging around. We had a nice dinner, then watched The Grown Ups( suprisingly better than I thought it would be) and were in bed when the ball dropped.

I am sincerely hoping we can start 2011 off on a good note and have some better luck this year than last, or at least an uneventful year.

We're going to kick off our year with a NADAC show and hopefully Reilly will repeat his Q and we can get the ball rolling.

Most of all I am hoping and praying that all my friends and family have a happy and healthy 2011.