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Well, for those of that dont know, Jake, our horse, passed away back in September.  We had to put him down after he had been very ill for about six weeks.  We took him to a vet to try and figure out why he wouldnt eat, and it ended up being stomach cancer.

Cancer is unheard of in a 9 year old quarter horse.  He just wasnt old, he was just getting into life.  We had him for just under a year, but were and still are very attached.

He was a great horse.  He would go out in the pasture and run and run with me, come back and be calm enough for Illianna to ride by herself without even a lead.  He loved the girls, would protect Jessica, and tried to get in my lap once when I sat down out in the pasture.  He was very convinced he was was a 1500 lbs puppy dog.  He would always come up to you in the pasture, and give all he had when you had him under saddle.  He was the type of horse that would make anyone think they were amazing with horses since he just knew it all, with very little teaching.  He wanted to please which made it so easy and wonderful to be around him.

We have put up all the pictures we have of him at his picture gallery.  If you look at the one picture of him being led by Illianna, you can see how much weight he lost.  That was taken the day before we found out about his cancer and put him down.  He was our first horse, won’t be our last, and taught us that even though he didn’t live with us, he was a huge part of our life and has changed our family forever.  Jake, you are remembered, and will always be loved.

This is what Summer is all about…

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This is a very typical Illianna face.

Since the job market is the worst my generation has ever seen, we are having to resort to other methods to pay the bills:

Aunt Natalie gave Illianna a new coat/hat outfit that is just too cute.  Here is a picture, hopefully it warms your holidays like it does ours!

Looking for disipline ideas?

She is getting more and more crazy….

We noticed tonight that we recently had some traffic to the site from the google search ‘missy moo’. This peaked our curiosity. What other missy moos are out there?

Well, it’s a popular name for a cat. Missy moo is Oober Yuckems ‘ not so secret admirer. Somewhere along the lines we ended up buying a bib from Australia (fyi-delivery by sea takes 2-3 months! we opted for air). We found some cute onesies (Link Removed on Remote Site) for identical twins, and the true meaning of missy moo.

gotta love the net

I love kids in hats. From day one I’ve had Illianna in a hat. Unfortunately she’s figured out how to take her hat off, and thinks it’s a trick. Now I’m having to wear hats as well because if she sees me in a hat then she’ll leave hers on.

Yesterday it wasn’t too hot, there was a slight breeze, and a few clouds remained in the sky from a storm that passed through the night before, so we decided to go on a walk. I got us all loaded up, which was a feat of it’s own because once the dogs see their collars come out they start going crazy, and we were just about to head off, when Missy Moo looked up at me with an evil smirk and pulled her hat right off. I only have one hat, which after recently falling into the pool I found out was made of paper (I didn’t know you could make a *real* hat from paper.), so I was in a bit of a predicament. Fortunately I saw one of Ryan’s baseball caps in the entry. It did the trick, and she kept her hat on most of the walk. Of course she wanted to try on Dada’s hat at well.