Week-end happenings.

I was a real slacker last week, and didn't write anything. and worse yet, I have no excuses, except that not much happened.

I can't even remember what we did last week-end. We did not go to the Springport Union City football game. They lost but only by one touch down. - Oh now I remember, we did one of my favorite things- we went shopping !!! Anna needed a new winter coat.

On Saturday Anna had a cross country meet in Constantine. Then she went to Grand Rapids and spent the night with a friend from Germany. I did laundry and grocery shopping- two of my other favorite things. On Sunday we drove half way to pick her up.

Monday Shonda, Anna and I went to meet baby Benjamin Murphy. What a cutie, even if he did sleep most of the time, except for the few minutes that Shonda feed him.

Tuesday, the 16th, Anna had a Cross Country meet at Homere, she has her best time at 22:40. but finished, I think 11th.

Sometime in there the computer started acting up, it is being really slow and takes for ever to get anything done.

Thursday, I took Anna-Lena and Christina to Charlotte, to shop (yeah) for Charlie's Birthday gifts, one of the first things they stopped to look at was make-up, I had to remind them that we were there looking for something for Charlie. The weather was terrible on the way home. I apparently missed the worst of the storm, the tornado siren went off in Springport about midnight (Friday somebody said it is the first time they remember it going off in 40 years.) I never heard a thing.

Friday, the 19th we went to Bellvue, actually Olivet for the Bellvue-Springport football game. I was afraid we were going to get really wet, but it wasn't too bad. Springport won 31 -10. They played much better than they have the last several weeks and got, what seemed to me, like many fewer fouls. Which means they made it to the play-offs for the second year in a row.

If anybody from Gobles in reading this, Do we have any "Gilberts" on the football team this year? Cecilia says Hi to your exchange student.

Saturday-another Cross Country meet, at Whitmore Lake, Anna- didn't do as well, time wise, but she did finish in the top third and got a medal. Charlie went to a horse clinic up the road, learned a little about who to "de-sensitize" horses, in other words get them to be less afraid of new things and distractions.
We went up to MSU to the Draft horse show on Saturday evening, Saw some awesome looking teams of 6 and 8 huge horses pulling their wagons. How cool. I told Charlie I'd ride in the wagon with him if he ever wanted to compete in that kind of show. (I will try to post some pictures later)

Shonda and Brian came over on Sunday and we had Charlie's Birthday dinner. They bought him a trail cam for his birthday so maybe I will have some deer pictures to post if I ever get the computer to work properly. (I am posting this from work, by the way-shhh!!)

Next week is regionals, I think ours is at Ann-Arbor Huron, not sure if it is Friday or Saturday. Football at Sand Creek Friday at 7:00. I know we used to have some relatives that went to school there, but I don't know if we still do or not.

Leaves are finally getting some nice color, maybe I can get out and get some pictures of those too.

That's all for now -

Ciao, J.

Horses

Anna-Lena had her first Cross Country meet on Wednesday, she finished 19, out of about 50. She ran 3 miles in less than 30 minutes. I don't think I can walk 3 miles without resting.

We decided not to go Up North this weekend; Anna-Lena had a cross-country practice and some horse stuff to do. She will be riding with the Springport Equestrian team, riding the horse of a friend, who teaches riding. We spent most of yesterday doing horse stuff, took her to see a horse show in Mason, she is a little confused by some of the terms and how they do things differently here than in Germany.

The picture on the left is Anna-Lena practicing in Finney. The horse she will be riding next week-end. The picture on the left is her riding in Germany.

Anna-Lena will be riding in the Hunt seat, Saddle Seat and Bareback class. I have no idea what that means except that bareback is without a saddle, the riders yesterday were wearing, derby hats and what looked almost like tuxedos. Most of the other Springport team members ride western, I believe this is the first time Springport has had anyone ride in these classes.

Then we picked up the horse, took her to another friends house who helped Anna with the showmanship part, leading the horse around the arena. That is a little different in Germany too.

The team’s first competition of the year is next Saturday, at the Ingham county fair grounds in Mason. I think they will be taking the horses over on Friday night, and the show is on Saturday. She is excited about being able to at the fair grounds with the coaches and other girls. More later. JB

Week-end Wanderings

It has been a pretty busy week-end. It started on Friday evening when Shonda called, on her way home, from her new job, said she had had a scare when she was the only person in the office, and someone came in told them there was a tornado warning and neither of them new where to go, they finally found the rest of the staff.

Brian, Shonda’s boy friend, called in from his way home from Muskegon said there were houses with the roofs torn of in Charlotte. I called Jenn, to find out they were OK but Arthur’s cousins were not as lucky. Check out his blog at http://www.arthurandjenn.com/?page=1, As he says thank God no one was hurt.

The storm and rain stopped in time for the Football, game. We took Anna-Lena and a neighbor girl. Neither one of them were familiar with the game. It was not very exciting. The first have wasn’t too bad, 14-14., In the third quarter it was like Springport couldn’t figure out what was happening. Vandercook made a touch down in the third but after that there wasn’t much happening until late in the fourth quarter when Srpingport got the ball back and Shane Trudell made a couple of good runs. Oh for those of you who might recognize them. There is a Negus on the Vandercook football team. There were Neguses on the team when I was going to school, must be grand kids huh?

I did find out that there are probably 3 guys who have "eyes" for Anna already and school hasn't even started.

Saturday we did boring house stuff. Laundry, groceries, etc. Anna needed some things for cross country and we bought a replacement mini blind to replace a broken one, and a pay as you go cell phone so Anna has it for emergencies.

Buying that phone was annoying, I knew what I wanted, but had to have a clerk unlock the phone, Anna and Charlie were with me, someone asked a question and the clerk who had not much of an idea what he was talking about tried to sell me smoothing I didn’t want, and created a whole lot of unnecessary confusion with 4 us trying to decide. Geeze I hate that.

Got home the shade was not wide enough, and we couldn’t activate the phone (they are only open during regular Monday-Friday business hours. I have to take the blinds back today and activate the phone today too. Not a big deal, just seems like everything goes haywire at once.

Anna went to watch a member of the equestrian team take her horse to jumping lessons, the coach from the Eaton Rapids team said she really should be on the Springport team, but we don’t have horse that is trained for shows and competition. When Charlie talked to the Springport Coach last spring, she indicated that they don’t want “kids or horses that aren’t trained.” A neighbor offered one of his horses. Anna rode it but it isn’t trained for that kind of riding. We finally made a contact with someone who knew someone else that might be willing to help. Charlie and Anna talked to her last night, she has a couple of horses that may work. Now they have to see if they have “room” on the Springport team.

We attended a Lansing Lugnuts game on Sunday, a beautiful day. This was supposed to be a library employee/family outing, but there were only 6 of us total, (2 employees) Anna and her friend had never seen a baseball game, so the first few innings were spent explaining the game to them. The game was a little slow during innings 4-8 when with a seven run lead, the lugnuts almost lost the game to the loons but managed to pull of a win by 1 run. http://www.lansinglugnuts.com/press_box/press_release_archive/8_26_07.html )

One young man (no more than 6 years old) who was standing in the front row almost caught a foul ball, but missed, because it hit him in the head and bounced off to a the kids in the next seat. He went to dad, crying with a big head ache. The head ache seemed to stop when his friend gave him the ball, later he really made out when one of the players walked out and gave him a bat apparently to help him recover from the pain.

We all had an opportunity to do the chicken dance and the hokey pokey. Yeah ;-)

The weather was beautiful and we had great seats, row 11, and right at first base. a good time was had by all (see the pictures)

Like I said a busy week-end- I’ll keep you posted.