What a busy weekend...

Would be unusual if the Stillwell household did not have a busy weekend and indeed we did. Friday ended with our regular work jobs and the real work just began. We grabbed some supper and headed to barn for an evening of preparing for the Howard County 4-H fair. Brice, our 4-H in our barn had is horse show on Saturday morning so it was evening of riding, washing, banding her mane, packing the trailer and finalizing the last minute details. Saturday morning, Joey, Jack & Brice headed off to the horse show around 8 am with light rain in tow. Horse shows are terrible when it rains. Jhett and I cleaned the house and did laundry. Jhett was going to have a babysitter for the evening because I need to go and work. We (Shoups) had one of the busiest weekends of the year (4 weddings in one night)! Hillary, our beloved babysitter, arrived and she & Jhett darted off to work on the 4-H dog float for the parade. I left and went to work. I received a phone call from Joey, Jack & Brice that Brice had been awarded the honor of Grand Champion 4-H Western Horse at the Howard County Fair. What a great accomplishment and we are so proud and excited!! The evening ended when I arrived home after 4 successful events around 12:30 am (Sunday)! Today we are mowing grass, weeding, cleaning our house, working in the barn and doing our normal outside chores! I am sure I am making you all exhausted as I type our agenda...what until next weeks post! Ha Ha

2009~4th of July

We had a super busy 4th of July weekend. Joey & I packed up the boys on Saturday morning and headed to South Bend, Indiana for a fun filled day of team roping, rodeo, food and fireworks. The jackpot ropin was really nice it was back in a wooded area and very pleasant. The ropin was held at the Flyin M Ranch in Elkhart. They had a huge sand box and lots of toys so we did not even have to get our toys out which was nice. Jack warmed right up to some of the other kids and started playing farm, rodeo and chasing goats. Jhett wanted to join really bad but he is just not quite big enough to keep up with the bigger boys. We headed to South Bend about 20 mintues away for the St. Joe County Fair rodeo. We heard that the cattle were really slow and times had been super fast the night before. We walked around the beautiful fairgrounds and located the Duck Race. Jack was very intrigued with the Duck Race so we watched and he whispered in my ear I want to do that. So I immediately started waving my hands so we could get picked to race a duck well we got picked and we had a great duck the first race and he WON his race out of 4. We got to participate in the Championship round and Jack got to name his own duck and tell the crowd thru the microphone that he named his duck "COWBOY". Cowboy raced pretty good but came in 2nd. We returned to the trailer to cook some porkburgers and hotdos and too bad the rain set in about an hour before the rodeo started. It rained pretty much the entire duration of the rodeo but we had a good time anyway. We were headed back to our beds around 10:30 pm and pulled in our driveway around 1 am what a day!

Aunt Keke makes a visit...

Aunt Keke (aka Aunt Kelly) made a recent visit from Denver for a quick visit in Illinois for Grandma Shirley's 75th birthday! Aunt Keke got to watch Jack take swimming lessons at the park with Mimi Braid! They had a great time as usual. I think Jack enjoyed having the extra attention and no little brother being in the way. Aunt Keke, Mimi Braid and Mumsy made a trip to Indiana to return little Jackman to his mom and dad. I got the opportunity to visit with Aunt Kelly and Sydney during dinner and wished we would have had more time to spend with them.

Our Celebrity...

Jack had a big week this week. He bacame famous by being photographed in our local newspaper not only once but twice. He thinks he is pretty big business for having his picture in the paper. A few weeks ago our family provided the activity for Dude Ranch week at preschool we took horses, cattle, ropes, cowboys and cowgirls to school. Needless to say lots of pictures were taken and one of the school teachers, Mrs. Baker & Mrs. Rule submitted the photos to the newspaper and guess what...they appeared in the scrapbook section. We have a feeling that is not the only time Mr. Jack will be in the local paper between 4-H, rodeo, sports, etc. He is for sure a celebrity in our eyes

Let's make a try at blogging...

Well I decided I need to be a follower and start a blog page for my family and friends. No guarantees at how I will keep up with this task but the word is I am going to try.