Captured memories

There aren't going to be very many words with this post - just a lot of photos! I've been taking tons of pictures with my new camera, but I haven't shared many of them with you. So here's a bunch of random photos to make up for my lack of them...

:: peaceful ::

:: reflections ::

:: i love the way her eyes sparkle ::

:: she's such a lil' cutie ::

:: the fresh scent of spring ::

:: i love the color in old brick walls ::

:: my lil' Jessie the cowgirl ::
(her name isn't Jessie, but she loves to pretend that she's Jessie the cowgirl from Toy Story)

:: bokeh ::

:: s'mores! ::

:: art ::

Just wanted to let ya'll know....

The cowgirl queen contest scheduled for yesterday was postponed due to rain, and the date was moved to this Friday (July 1st). I was a little bit disappointed about this change of events because I had pretty much everything ready and was almost to the point of  "let's just get this over with"....and now I have to wait another week! But on the bright side, I'll have some extra time to work on a few things that need some improvement (leads, patterns, and stopping). Another advantage is that they changed the time to 5:00pm...so I don't have to be up at 5:15am again!!!! I'm praying that the weather is nice on Friday and that everything runs smoothly.

Thanks for your sweet and encouraging comments on my previous post :) I hope that all of you had a wonderful (and dry) weekend!

:: banding Flash's mane ::

It's show time!

Clean tack. check

practice. Practice. PRACTICE. check

Makeup and hair. check

Get Flash all "prettied up". check

Show outfit. check

Make a list of everything that has to be done so that I can check this off of the list. check

 . . . . .

On Saturday I'm competing in my first Senior Cowgirl Queen contest - and let's just say that even though I've put a lot of effort into the preparation, I still feel really un-prepared!

The 4-H horse group in our county has a Cowgirl Queen contest every year, and the winner of both the Junior and Senior divisions will get to represent our group at the state competition in August. This will be my second year competing, and my first year in the Senior division. The past few weeks have been kind of crazy trying to get everything together!

The competition consists of rail work (pretty much a western pleasure class), a horsemanship pattern, and the cowgirl queen salute to top it all off. This year there are only two of us competing in the Senior division, so that helps a lot. We will mainly be judged on our horsemanship abilities, and then slightly on appearance. It's kind of fun to have an occasion that I can go all out with Western show attire :)

If you think about it, I would really appreciate your prayers on Saturday morning (the show starts and 9:00 - bright and early)! Right now I'm a little bit nervous about the whole thing, but also really excited about the opportunity. The results are in God's hands - I'm going to give it my very best and leave the rest up to Him.

I have a busy preparation day ahead of me tomorrow, as it is the "get-all-the-last-minute-things-done" day. I'll try to post a lot of photos and the results sometime later on this weekend, so I hope that you'll check back soon!!

I love my horse :)