Smith Family Weblog

We spent last weekend visiting friends in Madison, Wisconsin. We moved from Wisconsin about two years ago after living there for six. Our group gets smaller each time we go back as more and more friends finish grad school and move like we did. Fortunately, though, we have a core group that has put down roots.

Our first stop was Lori and Chuck’s. They run a horse farm outside of town, an undertaking they document here. Ava was thrilled to have the opportunity to see the horses, including these two new ones. Athena was born right about the time Olivia was.

Here’s Lori on the right; my friend Melissa is holding Olivia.

That’s a big bucket of horse poop, appropriately labeled.

Alisa and Ava meet Monty, a beauty belonging to Lori’s daughter Maddy.

Chuck, Melissa and Olivia:

Ava was very excited about the opportunity to ride a horse, so Lori and Maddy very kindly helped her onto Monty–bareback!

You can check out more photos on Lori’s blog here.

More Madison to come!

Given the challenge it was to get this shot, the title of this post could easily be “brats in hats,” but I know the grandmas would never approve.

Ava samples the first snowcone of the season…

And Olivia enjoys fresh apricots.

Okay, maybe “enjoys” isn’t the right word.

My mom just emailed me–not to see how we were faring, but to express her discontent with the lack of photos of Ava and Olivia. So, since I can’t snap shots of the passing storm, here are a couple of the girls.

Would anyone like to guess how many times Bryan has said, “Ava, turn off that flashlight! Conserve the batteries!”

I’ll also offer a prize for guessing the number of expletives he’s used to describe the blog. And the blogger.

You’d think this would be a good way for parents to save time, but believe me, you recoup it in clean-up.