Back to what I was saying...about the horses.

So Sunday morning we got up and went to church. We only stayed for Sacrament meeting because Daniel had more "Best Man" duties to take care of and then we were heading out to Uncle Genes to see the horses. All morning Kathryn was asking if it was time to go see the horses. She was so excited. She's recently been developing a love of horses because one day she asked me what my favorite animal was and I had told her that when I was a kid I loved horses, I still think they are beautiful. She now notices nearly every horse that we pass anywhere. She oohs and awes over how pretty they are. So getting a chance to see a horse up close was really exciting for her. Finally it was time to go and she wanted to know how long it was going to take. But I couldn't giver her an answer because I didn't know and that made her a little cranky. She often needs to know exactly why, how, when, where and what, precisely to the very detail(it drives me a little crazy sometimes).
As we drove into the farm yard I was breathless, it was beautiful as the trees opened up to the corals and horses. It was slightly up on a hill so it overlooked everything and you could see for a long ways. The thick forest of trees surrounding the farmstead were gorgeous, and the horses breathtaking. It was a sight right out of an old western. And then there came Uncle Gene, as if out of nowhere, dressed in very typical cowboy dress complete with cowboy hat. We had definitely entered another world. Uncle Gene had brought out two horses, Casey he had saddled with a little saddle for the kids to ride on. Beside Casey was a horse named Pirate, I'll give you one guess as to how he got his name.

Pirate the one eyed horse

Kathryn was astounded at how beautiful the horses were. After a little bit of chit chat, Gene put Kathryn up on Casey and head to the coral.

He explained to her how to ride the horse and told her that once she was comfortable on the horse she could let go and ride with no hands. Kathryn shook her head and say no way, but before long she was putting one hand out
and then the other and sure enough she was balanced and riding with out any hands.

Mean while Tansley was feeding carrots to the miniature pony, Sinbad and to Pirate. She wanted to ride the little horse but we weren't sure if there was a saddle for him or not, so Tansley was getting upset. I asked her if she wanted to ride with Uncle Gene on a horse and she said "NO!". By then Gene had brought out this gorgeous black horse named Curly. Curly is Gene's horse, he calls him "son" when he talks to him, and when he talks about Curly his bright blue eyes twinkle with pride and joy. After he had Curly saddled, he asked Tansley if she wanted to ride with him and Tansley nodded her head yes...and then got up on the horse with Uncle Gene and off they went with Kathryn trotting behind. At first they just trotted around the yard, and then they went out for a longer ride.  Kathryn was loving it!

When they got back Uncle Gene said "lets get that little one up on a horse". Now anyone that knows Kymberly knows that she does not do well with people she doesn't know and sometime she doesn't even do well with people she knows if it isn't mom or dad. So it was no surprise to us that she was upset when Daniel handed her to Gene. But then Gene rode off with her and there was silence....until Gene turned around and came back and Daddy was in view and then she started fussing. Gene laughed and said that she was bouncing along with the horse and humming along with him until she saw her dad.

Kymberly with Uncle Gene

When they got back Gene wanted to get Daniel up on a horse,

but he didn't look to thrilled about that. Apparently he had a bad experience when he was a scout. But Gene had him come into the coral and showed him that no matter what he was always in control, whether he had a hold of the reins or not.
He had us stand in the middle of the coral
and then he told Curly what he wanted him to do using words, body language and gestures. Gene is the Horse Whisperer in real life.  With out touching Curly he could get him to go any where in the coral, or make him stop instantly. He showed us how the horses are trained to be around kids so that if someone gets under them they will hold their leg up to avoid stepping on them until they were out of the way. Daniel was feeling a little better at being on a horse and Gene commenced in teaching him how to get the horse to do what he wanted him to do. It was a little funny watching Daniel trying to get up on the horse but once he was up there and Curly was responding to him just as Gene had said he would it looked like he was enjoying himself. They couldn't get a saddle on Sinbad for Tansley but they put her on there bare back and she loved it. Sadly we didn't have enough time for me to get on the horse, we were already an hour late for the family get together down the road. But watching the kids on the horses was more than enough for me.

Gene and his Horse Curly

We then headed just up the road to the Thiessens for the family thing. Hanging out with the Thiessens is like hanging out with my own family. The same crazy stories are told, there is alot of laughing and even water fights. However Gene and I both agreed that their water fights are nothing compared to a Forsyth water fight, as Gene put it "they didn't even bring out the five gallon buckets." Those involved were only mildly damp. The big story, second only to the wedding itself, was the chance reunion of Gene and I. It was a great time and everyone was saying that Daniel and I now had more reasons to come and visit more often. And really, I can see myself actually going all that way to visit both Travis and Debbie(and the rest of the Thiessens) and Gene. We would just do it over 7-10 days so that we could take our time driving up there and home again. Coming home was a long long long drive. Kymberly was sick and threw up just as we were coming into Nanton. That was a big yucky mess that we had to clean up, and then she screamed all the way to Claresholm with out so much as a break and a good way past as well. she finaly fell asleep but would scream periodically the rest of the way home to Milk River. We left Grande Prairie at 9:30am and arrived in Milk River at 11pm. Again we stopped in Mayerthorpe for lunch and in Calgary for supper and to buy school supplies. It was a long trip but totally worth it.

Wedding surprises

Daniel's friend, Travis Rustling was one of Daniel's grooms men at our wedding. So when he called and told us that he was getting married and that he wanted Daniel to be his best man, there was no question as to whether we would make the long trip to Grande Prairie to attend his wedding. We booked our hotel room back in April to make sure we would have a room. We were able to get a room with a full kitchen so we wouldn't have to worry about eating out, it also had three rooms. A room with bunkbeds for the girls, the Kitchen/sitting room with a pull out couch and the main bedroom (a full breakfast was also included). Because we had the space we invited Craig Sellars(a friend of Dan and Travis) to stay with us t
oelp both of us cut costs.
We left Lethbridge Thursday morning at 9:30am and arrived in Grande Prairie at 9:30pm. We made a couple of stops in Airdrie and Whitecourt to eat lunch and supper. But poor Kymberly was miserable for the last 2 or 3 hours of the trip. she screamed for a good 2 hours, making our long trip feel even longer. We were very grateful for the DVD player that kept the older girls busy. And even more glad that we had arrived at the hotel to put kids to bed. Friday was a busy day for Daniel, he was out and about doing "Best Man" duties, but the girls and I just hung out at the hotel and played at the pool on and off all day. It was great, after all that driving it was nice to just hang out and enjoy the cool water.

Tansley

Kathryn

Kymberly

Saturday afternoon was the big wedding day.

The Head Massage

A Facial?

Daniel had to go get the Groom so that the girls could do their getting ready thing, so he brought him back to our hotel room for awhile. Kathryn and Tansley were more than willing to give the Groom a warm up for the day.
They wrestled with him, danced with him, gave him a head massage and a special kind of facial. Finally it was time for the guys to go get ready and me and the girls once again headed to the pool before having a bath and getting ourselves all pretty. The wedding was at 2pm, we arrived at the church early so that we would be close to the front. The girls weren't ready to sit still just yet so we went to stand in the lobby while the guests were arriving. Then I saw this man that had a very long bushy beard and look very much like my uncle Gene (who lives in Grande Prairie and whom I haven't seen in about 15yrs), but why would my uncle Gene be at this wedding? So when there was no one at the guest book and went and looked to see if his name was there, and sure enough there it was "Gene Forsyth". Weird! I don't know my uncle Gene very well. Like I said I haven't seen him in about 15 years, and only a handful of times that I can remember before that. Because of the distance he has had with the family and becuase I really don't know anything about him, I have always assumed that he wasn't a social guy and that he just kept to himself, so I wasn't really sure what I would say to him or if I would at all.

The new Mrs and Mr. Rustling

getting married

my sexy hunk

So we went in to the wedding, which was wonderful. I loved what the pastor had to say about love and making sure that you allow God to help you have that never failing love in your marriage because you can't do it with out Him. It actually sounded much like what you would hear at a Temple wedding. When the pastor said "you may now kiss the bride" and they kissed Kathryn said "yuck". Daniel said later that he heard her. It was really beautiful and simple.
 As I walked out of the church I saw Gene standing in the shade of a tree and as I approached him he just said casually, "It's nice to get this coat off and stand in the shade". I smiled and said "uncle Gene?". He looked at me with a confused look on his face, so I said "I'm Rex's daughter Mandy" and that just about gave him a heart attack. His eyes went wide and he put his hand to his chest and gasped, "oh my, what are you doing here?". I explained how my husband was the best man and that we had both gone to high school with the groom. So I asked how he was connected, He sold a parcel of land to the Brides parents and they are now neighbours, and basically family. He told me that if he would have known we were coming we could have stayed at his ranch. Silly me for not thinking of calling up my uncle that I don't really know and asking if we could stay at his place...just didn't cross my mind. But as we talked I realized that he was nothing like I thought he would be. He was a Forsyth through and through, humble, social, friendly and very kind. He invited us out to his ranch so that the girls could see his horses. I wasn't sure when we could fit it in and the girls were getting restless standing in the sun, so we said that we would talk about it more at the reception. I left the church dumbfounded at the coincidental reunion.
The  Reception was at 6pm, so we had some down time at the hotel. I made everybody nap...which ended up being a small disaster. When I woke the girls to get ready to go to the reception, all three of them were screaming at the top of their lungs, I was able to settle both Tansley and Kymberly, but there was nothing I could do for Kathryn, who just kept making things worse for herself. I arrived at the Elks Hall with a pleasant Kymberly and screaming hysterical Kathryn and a crying Tansley simply because Kathryn was screaming. I left Kathryn and Tansley in the running van and went in to see if Daniel was around to give me some assistance, but he hadn't arrived yet. So I just stood outside in the shade and waited for him to arrive to try to calm the storm. When he finally arrive he was able to quite the storm but not completely end it. I'll take what I can get. So we entered the reception a little frazzled and just sat where we could, not paying attention to who was around. When it was time to eat, Gene's table was one of the first to be called to dish up, he brought his table sign over to our table and said that now we could go dish up to eat. He'd obviously seen the chaos that I was going through. After dinner and all the formalities were over the Dance started. I took that opportunity to go sit and talk with Gene. And it worked out that there was a family get together and the Brides parents place on Sunday afternoon that we were supposed to be out. It was decided that we would come out an hour early and go first to Uncle Gene's place and see the horses and then head over to the dinner. The girls had a blast at the dance, they danced with both Uncle Travis and Uncle Craig. They of course danced with daddy and they danced with Debbie's(The Bride) nephews(who were teenagers). We all had a great time and I finally took the kids back to the hotel at about 10pm. Kathryn went to bed excited about going to see the horses the next day.

Dancing with Travis3

Dancing with Travis2

dancing with Travis1

Kathryn dancing with Debbie's nephew

Tansley dancing with Debbie's nephew

Kathryn dancing with Craig

Tansley dancing with Craig

having fun dancing

Kymberly dancing with mom

Tansley dancing with daddy

Kymberly dancing with daddy

Kathryn dancing fancy with daddy

Kathryn dancing with daddy

I'll have to blog about that day a little later, I've been neglecting the children and they seem to want to eat lunch. Duty calls, I'll be back after lunch.

Court Family Reunion at Writing On Stone

Last summer I decided that I wanted to plan a Court Family Reunion(Dan's mom and her 5 boys) because every summer we never seem to be able to all get together and have the cousins hang out. Sometimes a last minute get together is attempted, but we always seem to be missing somebody. So I took on the challenge. Back in February I had booked the group camp site at Writing on Stone with the dates we had thought would work. But as the date drew closer, unforeseen circumstances made it so that people had to cancel. So I canceled the group site and just told everyone that Daniel and I would be camping and if anyone wanted to come they could find us their. It ended up being just us and Grandma Kaye(Dan's mom) camping. The weather was perfect, not to hot but plenty hot enough to enjoy your time at the beach. Tuesday afternoon Dan's brother Rob and his wife and kids joined us for an afternoon on the beach and for a hotdog roast for supper complete with smores.

Daniel and Rob and Stu(Rob's brother in law) went for a float on the river on some inner tubes. The rest of us waited for them on the beach. We had a lot of fun and I wished that we had one more day to spend there, but alas, we had a wedding to get to.

Playing with Grandma

Burying Daddy

So that was my attempt at a family reunion. Not a complete failure,but 2 out of 5 is still less than 50%. I likely wont be trying that again for a few years. It was difficult and frustrating, and times felt like I was the only one that wanted it to happen at all. But what can you do when things come up that are out of your control? Try to make the best of it by simplifying it to one day. But even that seemed to be to much. Oh well for those of us who were their, we had fun and the weather was great and the kids played and played in the sand. I liked camping so close, the quick drive was nice for the kids. Daniel didn't like that he was packing and unpacking the van so close together. I look forward to next summer and doing some more camping down at Writing on Stone.