HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAYLIE!!!

Today is Taylie's birthday. She is now officially 3 years old. We had Grandma and Grandpa Balls, Niki, Jake and their family, Cami and her gang, and Mel and Kaden over for cake and ice cream. Taylie was really excited to eat her cake. Steph made an awesome pink sand castle cake. It was really yummy! (Thanks Mel for helping with the frosting). Grandpa had to help her blow out the candles of course. After cake Taylie opened her gifts. She was so excited. Her face said it all. She got a princess dress and some Joni candy from Cami, a Snow White doll and necklace from Mel, some magnet dolls and a dress from Grandma and Grandpa, some My Little Ponies ponies and a movie from Niki and Jake (and a ring from Jessie :) ), and a princess laptop and some movies from Mom and Dad. Thank you everyone for celebrating her birthday with us. It was fun to have everyone over.

Just Something Fun!!

So Mike and I thought it would be fun to go back through the years and see what we could have looked like! Some of them turned out pretty good :)WARNING: There are alot of pictures!

Thanks Alfy

So last week I had to put my horse Little Alf down. He was 18 years old. I have had him for 11 years but remember him from a colt at my grandpa's. I have to make a blog about our story just so I have it written down.
I grew up with horses my whole life, my Grandpa Zundel bred and raised race horses. I remember my favorite thing about going to Grandpa's house was having him come wake us up at 6:00 am to go feed all the horses with him. My grandpa had a Stallion he called Big Alf, he was one of my favorite horses to go see at my grandpa's. I was 6 years old when I saw Little Alf ( Big Alf's first colt)he was about a week old and looked just like Big Alf! My grandpa was really excited about him because he had really long legs and my grandpa said he would make a great race horse. So through out the next two years everytime I would go to Idaho to visit my grandpa I would look forward to going to see Little Alf, he loved carrots so I would take him a carrot everytime I would visit. Krisann, Tyrell, and I loved to play horses when we were little. We would tie ropes across the tramp and pretend they were jumps. We would run on our hands and knees for hours and I would always pretend that I was Little Alf! Little Alf was one of my Grandpa's best race horses, he did really well on the track. When Alf was 3 he got cut really bad and the vet wanted to put him down but my grandpa wouldn't let him. I remember going to visit and Alf was in a stall in the barn with a big wooden collar around his head (just like on Black Beauty!) After taking the winter off, my grandpa tried racing him again but he just couldn't do it. My grandpa then gave him to one of my older cousins, which made me really sad because I never got to see him. Finally when I was almost 12 we got a call from my cousin. He said that everytime he tried riding Little Alf he got bucked off and he didn't want him anymore. He knew that I had always liked him and wanted to know if we wanted him. Of course my mom told him yes! So on September 26th of 1997 we drove over to Rigby Idaho to pick up my horse! He was so hyper and I had a hard time controlling him at first but we eventually found our happy ground and did great ever since. I took Grand Champion at the Wyoming State Fair for 3 years in a row in Jumping and also Took Grand Champion in 2004 at the Utah State Equestrian Show. Little Alf loved to jump, he would jump anything that was in front of him. Alf was my dad's hunting buddy, he would pack out a Bull Elk by himself because it was down in a ravine that they didn't dare take any other horse down besides Alf. Finally this past year he started settling down and my neice Mackezie started using him for 4-H. She did great with him! Thanks ALf for being the BEST horse anyone could ever have! I love you.