Pride in Progeny

By the time I had posted here last week, grandson Ty had already distinguished himself in a video published by the Cowboy Lifestyle Network for the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado January 14th and 15th. He had qualified for this (in steer wrestling) in December when he and his dad made a run over to Denver. His run of 6.4 seconds was good enough to get him in the top 15 and we were over-the-moon proud! Here is the video. Watch closely at about :27 seconds in for Ty Allred right before Trevor Brazile, a 13-time PRCA All-Around Cowboy World Champion! Our grandson - right up there with the big guys!

So darn cool!

Although his two runs in the show Saturday and Sunday didn't get him in the money, it was super awesome that he was competing at this level at age 18. He has hooked up with a couple Texas steer wrestlers who rodeo in the PRCA and this gives him a wonderful opportunity to not only hang out with the pro's but at the same time gain valuable experience in what hard rodeoing is all about.

Two of our grandsons, Ty and Tee, are at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas on rodeo scholarships and Ty's desire is to be a professional cowboy. He seems to be well on his way.

Photo taken by Ty's mother from the stands at Sunday's performance of the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo.

That weekend, granddaughter McKenna (Ty's sister) was home from college (Utah State in Logan) to dogsit while her mom and dad were in Denver. Grandpa invited her to saddle up the two horses left here at the ranch (the grandsons have six horses in Texas) and go for a ride at the Deseret Peak Complex arena. Here she is with Tigger.

Pretty cowgirl.

Grandpa truly enjoyed being back in the saddle and, when he has the chance, he will take the ponies out for afternoon rides.

A couple weeks ago, about the fourth of January, I started an online class called Digital Project Life: 2017 Edition, offered by jessicasprague.com. Although I have a room full of physical scrapbooking stuff, I just couldn't get myself motivated to scrapbook, especially since I take far too many photos and would need to get them printed, etc. I had done some digital scrapbooking from 2006 to 2011, I stopped, did a few paper pages, stopped and began pursuing other paper crafts, particularly stamped cards. Project Life, a concept developed by Becky Higgins, is "a simple system to document your story while still living your life." Jessica Sprague has taken it a step further by creating an easy digital method (although there are other classes/kits/apps available from other folks as well as Becky Higgins). Since I take so many photos that essentially record daily life, I figured I'd give this a try for 2017, and so far, I'm having a ball!

Here's how Week One looks.

I have almost finished Weeks Two and Three and by February 1st I will have January pages ready to send for printing. Then, I'll put them in a photo album for daily perusing. Stay tuned for my progress!

In other news, daughter-in-law Jennifer is putting on a baby shower for granddaughter Brittany in a couple weeks. Clare and I are giving the new parents a pretty nifty (and rather pricey!) stroller; it has a detachable carrier/car seat and so I am making a couple neat blankets for it. Here is a picture of the pattern found and "pinned" onto my Pinterest board, For Grands and Greats.

From here.

I have leftover fabric from this quilted blanket I made last October for them and so will use that, plus I bought some adorable baby dinosaur fabric at Joann's to make another. Sadly, I haven't started them yet as once I cleaned up and organized my craft/sewing space, I am reluctant to mess it up!

More later. Hope you're having a great start to 2017!