Killing Hike

On November 20, 2007 in the week of Thanksgiving, we drove to the Grapevine lake to go letterboxing. Letterboxing is when you look someone's letterbox on the internet and it will give you clues to were the stamp or letterbox may be. When you find it, you put your stamp in the logbook that will be in the box you find and their stamp in yours. Now you have found a letterbox! This is such a pretty trail, right on the water. This was quite a hike! At least a two mile trip. We didn't like it at all. Mom was so proud of us tired kids. Audrey wanted to walk a large part of it. That made it take even longer. About halfway there, we weren't entirely sure that we were on the right trail. We thought about going back but I was determined and encouraged them on. Ben agreed. We had to vote and Andrew was given hope. He didn't complain but he could hardly lift his feet. We kept going and saw the bridge that ment both stamps were close. When we found the letterboxes, we were so happy. It felt good to know that we didn't have to go any farther. We were all so tired. The walk back along the H2O was faster, shorter and more fun but it was still a long, long ways. Audrey fell asleep so mom held her and Andrew's hand on the steep and gravelly parts. We could see the car across the way.It sure helped to see your destination in sight.

I started off needing mom's jacket. I didn't need it very long though!

Braces

On April 24, 2008 I got my braces. I really like the colors I got, blue and green. My orthodontist is great, his name is Dr. Shroeder. I have a really good friend in my 4th grade class named Isabella (she goes by Izzy) who also goes to Dr. Shroeder. She has braces and we always think of ourselves as twins. A few weeks before the 24th, I got an impression. If you don't know what that means it is a way to make a model of your mouth. They put flavored molds on a cup thing that fits in your mouth, then they stick in and hold it there for 25 seconds. when it is done, it dries and you have a model of your mouth! It didn't hurt at all when they put the braces on. When I got there we had to wait a really long time in the waiting room, probably about 30 minutes. But when they were finally ready for us, I went to get an x-ray of my mouth. They said they had to do that for records. Then I came into the room were they do the braces and other stuff, I sat down in the chair and they took a lot more pictures. They said they had to do another impression, but I think they changed their minds. Then finally it was time to get on with the braces. They used a green thing to hold my mouth open and wide. With that in there they put the cement on my teeth and then the brackets. The brackets are the metal part of braces that the wire goes through. To dry the cement faster they shined a bright blue light on my teeth. Then they scraped off the rest of the cement that didn't need to be there. Then they told me to rinse. At the sinks I looked at myself in the mirror. I think I looked really cool. When I was done I went back to the chair and they put the green thing back in. Then they stuck the wire through the bracket and told me to pick a color. I asked them how many colors I could get and they said I could have as many as I wanted. I chose two colors, blue and green. Now that the braces were on, we had a lot of things to talk about. They told me what kinds of food I can and can't eat and talked about a lot more things I didn't and still don't understand. Then we could leave. At the front desk mom made more appointments for me. Right as we were about to walk out the door, the orthodontist came running out and gave us the dried impression of my mouth that they took a few weeks ago. I got to get a milkshake and didn't have to go back to school that day.

I LOVE MY BRACES!

My Horses History

I started riding horses when I was seven. I’ve been to lots of really cool places, Ride with Pride was first, Wagon Wheel second, then Showtime Farms, and last, Shady Oaks. The history of all these places is a very long story, but I will tell it to you anyway. I went to Ride With Pride for about a year and decided that I wanted to go to a more advanced place and went to Wagon Wheel. In between all that I met a really nice girl named Katie.

Mandi is on John and Katie is on Rio.

She liked horses as much as I did. We also noticed we had a lot in common. Well, we wanted to take horseback riding lessons together and went to all of these places together starting with Wagon Wheel. I was there for a really long time but then I got the news that they were moving their ranch to far away in Texas. So we had to find another place to take lessons. We had heard a lot of great things about Showtime Farms and went there. The lessons were only thirty minutes long and it was really expensive so we looked for another place. We found Shady Oaks and that’s where Katie and I go to this very day. There are four horses. Their names are, Sinclair, Sandy, Tia, and Doc. We ride Sandy and Tia. The teacher of Sandy is a really nice teenager named Charlotte. She owns Sinclair also, but she just got him and is warming him up to the new place and to herself. Tia’s owner, Carol, teaches me dressage on Tia.