Maren:
August was a great month with lots of fun activities to help wind down summer. We had horse camp this month and I actually got to attend twice! Sonja had so many girls interested in attending that she held two different sessions. The first session was for her youngest riders with less experience. I got to attend and be a "mentor" for this camp which meant that I was assigned to a camper to help/assist/teach them. I really enjoyed that experience and learned a lot myself. The week immediately after was a camp for people with more experience. Once again, we had a wonderful time riding, playing, and hanging out.
I also hit double digits this month when I turned 10! The actual day of my birthday happened to be on the last day of horse camp and we had our show. Mommy had to work that day and daddy was out of town. I was pretty bummed that no one would be there to watch me but mommy really surprised me by showing up to see me ride. She didn't get to stay long but she was there long enough for me to see me ride my test. She also made some really amazing cupcakes for me to share with my friends.... and they had horse shaped sprinkles!
For my birthday this year I elected to have an outing with Mommy, Nonna and my best buddy Amelia instead of a big party. We had a really fun day shopping, I got my ears double pierced, and then we all had tea at the TeaPot on Wheels. Amelia stayed the night and the following morning/day we had the Oppelts over for some play time on a waterslide. Mommy made a really pretty cake for me and we had a great day.
Maddox:
This month was pretty spectacular for me. I had the opportunity to have some really good one on one time with both mommy and daddy which made me feel really special. Just before horse camp started daddy took me over to eastern Oregon for a hunting trip. He and his good buddy Rod planned a very special antelope hunt and then daddy went elk hunting right after. I got to go over with daddy and help set the camp up and hang out a few days. We did some hunting, but I can't lie... staying quiet for longer than a few minutes is still quite a challenge for me, so we didn't see a lot of antelope up close. We did have a lot of fun playing baseball and just goofing off. Before his hunt really kicked of daddy ran me home and I got to spend some good time with mommy. Maren was in horse camp and I got to hang with mommy solo. We did lots of special stuff together and had lots of fun snuggling. One of my favorite things we did was playing in the irrigation ditch at the ranch... I had an absolute ball jumping backwards of the ditch onto my floatie! Mommy also helped me bake a pie with the blackberries we picked from the ranch. We even marked it with a double "M" for Maddox and Mommy!
