November update

Sophia turned ten years old on November 1st.  She had a party on her birthday at Build a Bear.  She had a great time with some really good friends.  She picked Olive Garden for her birthday dinner.  It was a great day.  Hard to believe she is ten years old already.

Sophia made her own cake for her birthday.  She did an awesome job.

This year's gift from China.  The character for love.

Sophia rode in the final Hunter/Jumper show of the fall series.  She did an awesome job.  She had a scare during the canter class of beginning equation.  There were fourteen horses in the ring and she was cantering between the fence and a jump when two other horses came from behind and cut her off. She had no where to go because she was up against the fence. Her horse spooked but some how did not buck.  Sophia stayed calm through the incident but then got upset when she was leaving the ring. She didn't want to go back in again.  Luckily the next class was a cross rails class which is done individually.  Her coach missed the run in incident and just sent her back in.  Sophia did an awesome job in the cross rails class and then even went out to do two other classes. She did verticals for the first time in a show.  Sophia overcame a lot of fear when she got in the ring again.  She rode through the fear and came out successful.  She was beaming with pride when she finished.  She finished the day with a 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th place, 5th place and 6th place ribbon but she came out with so much more knowing she did not give into the fear.

 We had Thanksgiving at our house. Steve's mom, sister, niece and nephew joined us. We had a wonderful dinner and yummy dessert.  Sophia created a scavenger hunt for our guests.  It was very creative.  They had to search for clues.  The found items spelled out Happy Thanksgiving.

Life is good!