The Midieval Times!!!

When we were in SC we went to this REALLY NEAT place that was this castle type thing. It had a King, a Princess, a Prince, Knights, Lords, Heralds... It was set in the mid-evil days of knights and bad guys and good guys.

The castle

You have to cross a draw-bridge to get in.

You knock on the door and wait. Then a door on the the other side of the bridge opens up, trumpets sound, and the whole kingdom comes past, and you follow them into the castle.

Levi challenging a suit of armor!

Joe loved this

"Lords & Ladies"

A $5000 suit of real armor. Anybody want to buy it??

Lord Chancellor and the heralds

Seated at the "hall" of the kings court for his guests.

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The night was a story line, and in the this kingdom, "The Realm", was bad guys and highway men, and knights and the prince fighting the bad guys. The knights needed someone spectacular to help them over come the bad guys, so the King sent his son, the Prince. He was only supposed to be gone for 10 days, then he'd be back for this feast, which would be what we were there for, but he didn't come back. So the Princess, his wife, was all worried sick and urging the king to send men to find him. So the king does, but hears no word, and hears no word... very distressing!

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What we ate on. We had no silverware; it wouldn't have been invented yet!

While they were waiting for the return of the long-awaited Prince, the kingdom put on a "show" for the guests, us.

A gorgeous, well trained Fresian gelding

They did a really neat horse thing with half a dozen Lipizzaners; It was really neat! They even had one horse that did Kung Fu; it jumped and kicked all fours out at the enemy!!! Sorry, we didn't get a picture of that...

The Kung Fu war horse. He was the prettiest "stallion" out there.

They did a neat falcon thing too

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The Princess bidding her Beloved farewell.

The Knights!

Our horribly ugly, and war bent, knight: The Green Knight.

Tossing poles back and forth, at a canter!

The Princess dropped flowers for the knights to award to their 6 chosen ladies. (Emily, Jada, and I all got one)

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The Virtuous knight... he got it!

So did our knight, Dragon Claw, the Green Knight.

The dancing horse "from Persia", really danced to the music in time!!

Dragon Claw ans Samari got ancy to fight, and started

Fighting!!

Ahhggg!! Right through his stomach....

This guy's a goner too.

Lord Chancellor (he reminded me so much much of Nick, my 26 y/o brother!)

Jousting...

...to the death.

Theloyal, righteous knight, Virtue.

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The prince returns... or should I say, is returned!

As it turns out, Dragon Claw was a dark knight, against the king, and leader or the bad guys, and had captured the prince.

They fight to the death to see who will live to be on top. (sorry it's so foggy; the arena was filled with smoke, on purpose of course!)

"Virtue" fights for his Prince.

"Well done, thou good and faithfull servant. You saved my life; Thank you!"

"Cheers to peace in the restored kingdom of Laone!!!!

Levi with the prince.

"Goodbye Midieval Times!!"

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We will post videos soon. They show so much more than the pictures!

Post by: Rose (for Juli, finally!)

Happy 16th Birthday Rose!!

Happy 16th Birthday!!!

This picture is from when we were at the Midevil times!!

Happy birthday Rose.
You have been such a blessing,
And a GREAT sister,
We all pray that the LORD will work in your life!

Things Rose loves:

*The LORD
*Instruments
*Being with her family
*Writing stories
*Being with friends
*Outdoors and Nature
*The color, burnt Orange
*Reese's peanut butter cups
*Little kids
*Reading
*Singing
*Studying midwifery
*Bible Institute classes
*Our Church
*traveling
*exercising
*Sign Language

And much More!

One Tuesday Morning (and evening)

This is how the Tuesday 2 days before we left went: We started out by loading up the horses to bring to the Atwater’s for the couple of weeks during our trip. You have to understand, my horse, Dakota, HATES to load. He acts like the trailer is going to eat him, and last time it took us 2 days, a blindfold, 2 gates, and 6 people to get him to load!!! Crazy horse!!!
So Nina and I went early in the morning and didn’t feed them so we could lure them in. We walked ‘Kota around for a bit while Mom hooked up the trailer. When Mom backed the trailer in, (she’s getting good at that backing thing!) Kota heard it and got all wide eyed and shied. I thought, “Oh great. I can see how this is gonna go. We might just end up riding him the 4 or 5 miles there!” But then he calmed down and started munching on what little grass was there. He was so pretty with the wind blowing through his flaxen mane, and the sun shining down on his beautiful red/brown coat...

Backing in...

"Why do you have a halter in your hand?"

Watching Mom back in the trailer

"Bye baby."

Munching. Yum!

" Just walk up...."

And…. He said NO! So I circled him and tried again. And circled again and tried again. And again. And…. Again. You get the point. He just wasn’t doin’ it. Then someone suggested a lead chain, which we didn’t have, so I used the chain we use to keep the gate closed, and wrapped it over his nose. He reared, (yes, he literally reared. That’s how much he hates loading!) and I yanked down on the chain, and he was like, “Whoa! I don’t like that chain thingy!” He got under control, and then walked into the trailer for me! “That was easy!” I thought.

All loaded up and ready to go.

Driving

"I'll get you out boy."

The Atwater equine were like "What????"

" Walk out easy Kodes."

"Easy baby."

Mom unloaded her boy

Proud looking Chiko was very dirty! (Never get a white horse!)

Walking to show them the fence

Free (behind electric fence!)

Grazing time

"Hey, why ya leavin me hear?"

And here's Rudy, the rude little annoying fat pygmy goat!

They unloaded well and got used to the honking geese and curius turkeys. They never even tested the fence! Chiko turned out to be more frazzled by the exprience than Dakota.

So my boys are doing well and I can't wait to see them again!

Post by: Rose

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Then, after the horses were settled, we got home and scrambled like eggs to get the house in order enough to have the Miller family over for supper and fellowship. We thoroughly enjoyed their visit! Paul and Abby were a blast and the kids really liked the kittens. They have 8 kids, 12 y/o Daniel is the oldest, 5 m/o Julia is the youngest. We played Apples to Apples for a while, then just talked and had yummy dessert of brownies and ice cream! We swapped stories for a while and then, with an hour drive ahead of them, at 9:45 they said they were leaving. Then at 10:30 they said they were leaving. But... they didn't leave till 11 something!!! Bunch of partiers we are!! Ha-ha!!!

Emily "Sunshine"

The adorable stinker, Simeon

5 y/o Joey

12 y/o Daniel is over 6 feet tall. Taller than Abby!!!

Eating taco soup. Yummy!!

Post by: Rose