Bluegrass Lovin' at Summers End

Where have we been you may ask. Certainly missing from the blog world. Sam and I enjoyed a peaceful summer as Sam spent eight weeks in clinical here in Augusta. It was wonderful to have weekends free of homework and evenings of no studying and stress. But all good things must come to an end (thankfully a temporary end), and Sam had to head back to class for his FINAL year of school!

Before going back to school, we decided I would take a week off of work to enjoy one another and get some rest. We decided to head to the family farm in Kentucky! We had a WONDERFUL time and were blessed with some gorgeous weather.

Our journey began after dropping Everest off with my mom and taking Sterling on a six mile walk to wear him out before the long car ride. Everything started off well, until we hit Tennessee. Sam and I have some bad history with car problems in Tennessee as we were stranded there for hours one Sunday years ago. I had just dropped off to sleep and Sterling was quietly slumbering in the back when Sam woke me up to say I needed the car manual as my check engine light had come on. This kind of thing only happens to us on a Sunday when everything is closed in the dreaded state home to Volunteers and Commodores. After waisting an hour checking everything we could think of and calling plenty of people who know nothing about cars, we decided the warning light would just have to stay on. We set off again, and wouldn't you know, the light went off as we crossed the Kentucky border!

We pulled into the farm about 11pm and after a 7 plus hour trip in the car, we were all exhausted and ready for bed. The next morning we pulled the shades, and Sterling went berserk! Ten feet from the house were two horses. He was very distraught that such large unknown animals had snuck up on us in the middle of the night. So we decided to take him out to meet Uncle Bill's two horses, Marvin and Dakota. Surprisingly, Sterling loved them, and by the end of the week, Sterling and Marvin had become best friends.

We set out sans Sterling to go canoeing on the Kentucky river. It was a beautiful day, and we had an excellent time.

We spent the majority of our time on the farm relaxing. But we also rode a four-wheeler around the farm and spent one afternoon riding Dakota. Poor thing, Dakota is only about 14 hands, and Sam was a lot of rider for the little horse, but he was a good sport.

We also met up with a couple we met on our cruise back in April. Sadly, there are no pictures of our time together in Kentucky, but we thoroughly enjoyed some foot long breadsticks and good conversation with Chris and Sara Waynick one evening.

It was back to Augusta after a few short days, but I'll leave you with some more of our favorite memories from the Bluegrass state.

Hamilton Family Homestead

(Sam's mom's childhood home)

Tree swing in the front yard

Old Bull Pen now for Marvin and Dakota

Old Barn

Sterling meets cows

Friends!

View of the farm from Uncle Bill and Aunt Carole's Home

Sterling giving Marvin kisses

Happy Puppy!