Darien Lake Continued

My three handsome escorts spent quite abit of time just fooling around.

Only Ethan and I would ride this crazy one (to the left). He's the blond skinny kid next to the fat lady with black hair.

This simple swing ride is one of my very favorites. It's so relaxing.

Most of the time was spent on the water rides, but we didn't take the camera for that part.

Last Fling Before School

We made our annual pilgrimage to Six Flags Darien Lake the week before school started. It was a drizzly cool day, but that just meant the lines were really short! You can see in this picture how nasty the weather was. By the way, I won the two tickets at a summer employee party where I work for answering questions correctly about American history!








And here we are at Darien Lake after a rather long circuitous trip due to our lack of a decent map and a detour. We told Ethan we were just waiting for the weather to improve!






We took Jeremiah's cousin, Ethan, with us because it's so much more fun at an amusement park to have someone to do things with. I did ride quite a few rides with them, but Duane isn't into rides!







I'm on here with the kids. I can't remember if this is the Twister or the Mind Eraser, or what. Must has erased my mind whichever it was!
It's not really that bad. There are a few of the coasters that I won't ride.








Bumper cars are of course fun for everyone, and an event that Duane enjoys. The fun of this one is hampered slightly due to the fact that they only let you go in one direction.

Alesha's New Job

No sooner did we get home from taking Erika to college, then it was time for Alesha to leave for her new job. She got home from Circle C Ranch on Saturday night, and left for her job on Tuesday or Wed. morning. She works for an extremely wealthy family that owns show horses that do dressage events. She is a groom. Right now she is in southeast PA and in October they move the horses down to the West Palm Beach area of FL. I don't have any pictures to show. It was very hard to see her go, especially not really being able to picture what her situation is, and it was so nice being able to see her every couple of weeks this summer.
Here are some excerpts from her letter home: "This job is pretty boring and long hours but it's decent money so its okay." "I feel like I stepped into a Victorian novel...I feel like the hapless groom from a Victoria Holt book. It really amuses me that they look down on the people who get their hands dirty taking care of the horses, then they just show up and ride." "We get to the barn at 8. We take off all the night wraps and hand walk each horse for 40 minutes. We give them an hour back in their stall, then hand-graze them 30 minutes each. We clean all the buckets, grain dishes, water the indoor ring, roll the wraps, stuff like that. After lunch we graze again, do various chores, and wait for .....to show up. Whenever a horse gets worked he gets a 15 minute warmup and a 15 minute cooldown. We pick out their hooves and wrap their legs every time they leave the stall....we even have to polish her boots and spurs." "I stopped at a church one night after work and I guess they do a night service, so I'll try to get to that."
So, that's the latest news from our poor Victorian groom who works as a servant for rich folk. The worst part is that she works with horses but can't even ride.

Erika at Cedarville (CU) cont.

This is Erika's desk, which is right at the end of her bed. So, she has one long side of the room, with the closet to her back as she sits at her desk. Her roommate's side is the same. The window is at the heads of their beds, with the computer stand between the beds.








There is only one four drawer dresser for two girls!!! That was a challenge, but with underbed storage we managed quite well. Actually, it's not a problem until you get into winter sweaters.

The rest of the weekend was full of meetings for parents and students, some together and some separately and social activities. It really was an outstanding weekend. The one meeting they had with a skit about college kids and how they change during the four years was the best. At the end of that meeting they had all the freshmen move to the center of the chapel and all the parents circle around them in the aisles. Then he (the President) prayed for the parents and then for the students. I don't think there was a dry eye among the parents. It was a very touching meeting and a wonderful way to leave your child, knowing the love and prayer that they are surrounded with their. Dr. Brown said his door is always open to students, and you could tell that he really meant it. We left after church on Sunday, and Erika had a full day of activities to keep her busy.

Erika has a blogspot of her own, and has been posting regularly there (you can find it under my blogging friends--she is Nepo's Mullings). So, if you want to keep up-to-date with her, bookmark her blogspot.