Video of Riding the Pony

Here I am at my riding lessons. I am doing an exercise where I ride without hands like The Black Stallion!

Holding our breath

Here we are in the swim class. I learned the day before to go under water for the first time!! I wanted to keep doing it over and over again. I was so proud of myself. So, Dad came otday and got it on video.

The Natural

We are here! We came to the stables for the first time to ride the ponies. It was so fun and I couldn't stop telling Mom and Dad how excited I was to be there.

I found a hat that fits me so Mom had me pose for a picture. She said it reminded her of the day when she rode horses when she was 10.
This is my horse Estrellito (little star). I was the smallest one in my class.
I am so happy to be here.
We are doing a drill where you stand up in the saddle and lean forward a little bit. When I wasn't sure what my teacher was saying I just watched and copied the other kids. I was a fast learner. My teacher Laura was very impressed.
Here we had just finished lining up all of the horses and each student took turns walking across their backs and jumping off the last one with the help of the instructor.
Can you find me?I am looking at the camera.
We are about to go on a mini trail ride.
We headed out to a little spot and turned around and came back. I put my feet back in the stirrups all by myself!
The skyline in the back. Laura my teacher held my reigns and another girl's since we were the smallest. It was nice because I didn't have to worry about the horse stopping to eat!
Laura and me.
We are all done! I was sad. I wanted to ride another pony.

So, we stayed and watched the next class and I showed Osito the ponies. It was good because then we got to review and watch some of the things that we did in our class so next time I can participate more in the drills. We learned new Spanish vocabulary!
This is another class with kids 9-11 years old.
I was so tired last night from swimming and getting up early this morning that I crashed out on the way home. When I got in bed with my Mom to take a real nap I told her that I wanted to go back and do it again.

28 weeks!

Countryside

We stayed in a fun house in the country last weekendfor a team meeting/retreat. It was wonderful!!!!!


We saw horses!




We enjoyed running under the beautiful trees with changing leaves.
throwing rocks in the stream
Christopher and me


We played memory with Lightening McQueen cards.
We also played "Guess Who".
We all got a special prayer of blessing on our last day.

Taking Care of Mom

So, Papa went our of town this week for a leadership training and me and Mommy were home alone. Mommy asked me if I was going to take good care of her while Papa was gone. I said, "Yeah, I will ask you when you need to poop and pee, okay?"

Meeting at VIPS

We met up with our first supervisor and his wife and daughter before our retreat. They were in town for business stuff. Yay! It was the first time Laura and Katie had the chance to meet them. As always it was so fun.

Retreat

Here is the place where we stayed last weekend for the marriage retreat. It used to be a old hunting lodge and now it is reserved for conferences. It was kind of a bad season to enjoy the air. The farmers were burning their fields to prepare for planting this next year. So, needless to say it wasn't as beautiful as it could have been.

Marcos and I played some pool when we first arrived while we waited for our other friends to arrive. We wanted to get their early so we wouldn't have to drive in the dark.

Can you tell how thankful I am for my friend?
Daddy making Mommy laugh.
What are they looking at?
They are looking at us walk up to the top of this hill. The two girls that came to watch us while our parents were in their marriage sessions took us on an excursion to the top.
I love being silly and making Marcos laugh.
We had movie time in the evenings.
Mom and Dad made a marriage pact.
I got the balloons before we left and popped them in the parking lot!
This is the view from the other side of the mountain of the windmills. It was such a great time for me to be outside enjoying my friends and just being a boy! Thanks Mom and Dad. Can we do it again?
As a matter o' fact, this weekend we are going on a team retreat to another center where we will be making s'mores, having a camp fire, playing games and playing in the dirt! We will post pictures of this, too.