Horses!!

We've started Sarah with some horseback riding lessons here. We found a place that is just around the corner from our house that does them. She loves it! She rides for a couple of hours every Tuesday. They teach them the tacking (putting on the bridle & saddle), grooming, and how to ride and handle the horses.

They seem to concentrate on equestrian style riding at that stable, though that's not Sarah's purpose for taking the lessons. Ever since she was very little, Sarah has loved horses. Her life's ambition (her dream job) has always been to work with handicapped kids and riding horses for therapy. She's planning to go to an agricultural college like Utah State to learn about how animals can be used for therapeutic work. We thought it would be good to get her some close-up exposure to the animals, and let her learn the basics of handling them, preparing them for a ride, and the care & grooming they'd require.

She has a blast at it, and is definitely the highlight of her week.

 

Keri has to go with us every week to pick Sarah up, and we can't drag her away from the stables.  She would love to do this too, but it would be WAY too expensive to have two kids in the program (it's really too expensive for one, but Sarah needs it for her emotional well being right now & for her future plans).

Keri's doing great in school (she's been recommended for the AG - academically gifted programs next year in a couple of subjects) and has a lot of friends there. Again, it's taking a while to find many kids right in our neighborhood to play with though. Maybe when the HOA pool opens next month they'll meet some more kids close by. We know both girls, but especially Keri will be living at the pool as much as Laura will go with her.

Brennen's in 7th heaven... if only he could wake up for it!

Brennen had a picture taken of his early morning seminary class her to send to his former class in Utah.

He loves getting up at 5:30 in the morning (lol!) to meet with his class at the church - oh, and I love getting up to take him just as much.

At least there's cute girls there ... but he's way too tired to care all that much that early in the morning.

Grandma Platt actually loves animals! ... yeah, right.

We got some very unique pictures of Grandma Platt while she was visiting. Who ever thought that she would be smiling while she had animals surrounding, and even sitting on her?

She actually volunteered for these pictures. I think she was really trying to fit in with all the animal lovers in our family.

She's actually petting Tiger! I think she probably got shivers all that night in her bed thinking about touching those icky things. :-)

Driving accross NC...

We had a great, week-long visit from Grandma Platt this week.

The girls made doughnuts and biscuts with her, and she made some great dinners while here - - boy I miss Sunday afternoons at the Platt 'mansion' for dinner!

We also took a nice long 5 hour drive accross NC on the holiday Monday. From Raleigh-Durham to Burlington, to Greensborough, Winston-Salem, and up the mountains to Boone (for Daniel Boon - I think), and back again.

Unknown to me, Boone is also the home of Appalachian State University. You know, the I-AA football team that beat mighty Michigan & took the Nat'l championship?

It's a small, but pretty nice campus, but it was WAY too cold to spend much time out of the van. We took a small 'jaunt' by the tennis courts, and about 3-minutes into it our ears were frozen!

It was a nice drive to see what else is around that we haven't had any time to do since being here.

Laura got a new camera for her birthday. It's one of the nice SLR 10.1mp digitals (the ones that look like 35mm). She wanted to get back into her old photography hobbie, so she wanted a really good camera. We can't believe what good & detailed pictures it takes.

She took this fun closeup of Keri with it to try it out.

I'm not sure if it will show as detailed on the blog, but on this fun picture of Keri, you can actually see the little, usually invisible hairs on her skin under her nose!

Here are some more shots of the kids she had to take the first day.

The Hair and Nails!

It's been a hecktic time trying to get everything settled in preparation for moving to our new house, so the blog has suffered.

But, I promised a picture of the "makeover" Laura got in celbration of selling our Utah house. Really, she just got her hair done (with highlights) and some nails for the first time.

I really like the look!

SOLD!!!

We officially sold our house today!!

We got another offer on our house, and it was a cash offer so not much chance of falling through due to financing woes! It was a Japanese investor. It was looking so solid, but the amount of documents that have to be signed due to relocation about killed it yesterday. We had just one final document to go, and the guy was making comments like, "maybe this just isn't meant to be" because of all the documents. We were so stressed last night because of that.

But he finally got the last doc back to us today, and now we have a signed & executed purchase & sale from the relocation company, so it's now a done deal!! If the guy backs out before closing, it's still the relocation company's house.

When we first heard about the offer, we called our realtor here & went hunting. We had a few in mind & looked at those. We had one picked out, but figured we had some more time so we went to a few she had printed off from her search.

The last one we went to was pretty much Laura's (and mine) dream house. It's painted just the way she envisioned painting, it has a nice sized yard - not too big, not too small - and it has a land buffer behind it that is forested with nice woods and a creek! Absolutly move-in ready. We won't even have to redecorate or paint or anything.

We put an offer in the next day and after just a little back-and-forth, the terms were settled & accepted ($10,000 under asking) - so we're under contract on it too!

Take a look at the pictures & such if you want here... they don't do justice to the back yard at all.
http://www.prucarolinas.com/Listing/ListingSearchResults.aspx?Search=78e1356f-3ce8-406d-a279-8f0739a6e8fd&SearchType=&ListingType=1&ListingDistrictTypeID=&FirstLetter=&Sort=6

The very back is lined with azaleas that will all bloom in the spring & it will be awesome!

And this is a virtual tour...
http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?t=1214320&prt=20

We don't close until Dec. 14th, so wish us luck in being patient while being so excited to get out of the apartment we've been in (it's nice, but gets cramped with the kids fighting in this close of quarters).

We should be moving in on the 15th (we hope). If anyone can make it to help us move in, that would be great! :-) - no really, the moving company should do all of the heavy work. We'll just have to unpack & put things away.

Anyway, that's why there haven't been many blog entries lately - stress!! - we'll talk to you all later!

Next entry is Laura's celebratory funky cool hair-do (can you say frosted highlights?) and nails!