HaHa's Horses

Going out to the barn with Haha has always been a favorite thing to do for Kaitlynn. She LOVES horses!! Today, the whole family went out and everyone had fun! We met at 8:35 in the morning to ride before it got to hot.

You already know the 2 humans on the outside, but let me introduce you to the horse in the middle. This is Shasta, the birthday present I got when I turned 13. I can not count the thousands of hours we spent together, the rides, the swims in the pond, the fun!! She is now 29 years old and has been retired for awhile, but for today, she was pulled out of retirement so the kids could ride her and she did GREAT!

This was Kaebrie's first time to see the horses and as usual, she was fearless.
Kaitlynn and Shasta.
Well, if Kaitlynn can brush the horses, Kaebrie thought she could do the same!
The first touch. :-)

FEARLESS. She LOVED it!

This is as close as we could get Christopher. He did feed them an apple at the end of the morning though. There is HaHa with Rusty.
Collin rode Ranger.

Two happy Smith kids ready to ride!

Out in the big front pasture.....


Kaebrie wanted to ride too!

Kaitlynn is in her element out here. She almost looks like she is going to pop from happiness. My mom has already taught her a lot about the correct way to handle the horses and their equipment and she just soaks up all the information.

We are going to seriously consider being horse owners one day!!

Meet My Family

The post below tells all about our family trip to the beach. Back in December when we decided to make this trip and bought all the plane tickets, we also decided to take a family trip to the beach. After Sam's 6 month Kuwait assignment was cancelled and we realized he could join us I decided that we needed to do some nice pictures. I e-mailed everyone and told them to bring a "denim bottom and white top" outfit to the beach. I only got a few grumbles, but they did it!

Here is my family!! For my children, this is their COMPLETE family. All 4 grandparents, all siblings, their mom and dad, aunts, uncles and first cousins. Needless to say, these pictures are already pretty priceless to me.

Here is all of our family!
Here are Sam's parents (Poppa and JuJu) with all 6 of their grandchildren.


This is my sister Jacquie, and her hubby Brian and my nephew Blake.

This is Sam's brother Phillip, his wife Heather and Brooke and baby Noah.

Sam's sister, Erin.

Sam's original family; his parents and siblings.

A sweet one of Poppa and JuJu!

Aren't they beautiful?

Blake!

Brooke and Noah

Some Silly Smiths!

My dad, Bumps, with Kaebrie

Brian and Blake

My mom and her two girls

A goofy one of my dad with his girls!

For Sam, this is his side of the family!

For me, this is my side of the family.

And that is it!! There are MANY more, but I picked out the favorites.

Such a special time it was!

beach trip odds and ends pictures

On June 14th, we left Alabama for Florida. WHAT FUN! Our ENTIRE family was able to go and we totally enjoyed ourselves. It was Kaebrie's first time at the beach and I do not think Christopher remembered it at all. They sure did love it though! Except for the salt water part. They didn't enjoy getting that in their eyes or mouths! :-)

Kaebrie was fascinated trying to crawl on the moving sand.

She did really like all the waves though!

Kaitlynn loved it all!

This beach was WAY bigger then her sandbox back home, so many hours were spent digging here.

Floating on the waves was fun too! She really surprised me with how fearless she was.

Here is Kaebrie with my mom, her "HaHa."

And then with my dad, her "Bumps."
We stayed at the Maxwell AFB spot called Mid-Bay. I HIGHLY recommend it. Nice cabins right on the water, basically our own private beach. Here is what we spent a lot of time doing. Just sitting. :-)

Christopher, as usual, was NEVER still and had his entire family there to keep him occupied and busy.

Here is Collin with the start of the sand castle fort.

Kaitlynn BEGGED for watermelon, so we found a Winn Dixie and bought the biggest one we could find!




Here is Kaitlynn with her cousin Blake!

To get out of the hot sun one afternoon, we went over to the Gulfariam. I love this one of the boys looking into the dolphin tank. It is fun for me and my sister to both have a 4 year old boy!

Here is Christopher waiting for his ice cream.

Uncle Brian shows them all something at the petting tank.

Meet my newest nephew, adorable little Noah!

Crabbing at night was a lot of fun! They ended up catching seven! Here is Collin with our niece, Brooke!

There are more to come! I might have some more time later to blog some more. We are having a GREAT time, though we still aren't used to this HEAT and humidity yet. It is HOT in the south!!!!