The Man In the Iron Mask

You know, 'cause his welding mask makes him look like the guy in the movie...

So, Allen is a machine. He has the house side of the arena (this also serves as the back yard fence) done. It looks awesome. He did not want to do the work, but knew it would help ease my mind. I offically have an arena with boundaries. The horses are out and they are so happy not to be in a 12x12 stall. The whole idea was to leave them in there temporarily - about 2 weeks. Well, that turned into 6 weeks and I was beginning to see some reprocussions (their hooves were absorbing way too much moisture, causing their hoof walls to get soft. I pay $92 per horse every 7 weeks to have the farrier come out - yes every 7 weeks on the nose. That's almost $400 every two months just to have their feet done. I don't want to see all of that effort and cash down the drain. Not to mention the old addage: No hoof, no horse.) He would be even farther along if he hadn't tried to be efficient. He cut the posts that make the rails all at one time so he could just go down the run and weld. As he starts to put the rails together, he realizes all of the lengths are 1/2" short. He had cut about 10 lengths that way. He thinks that he had the saw set wrong. When something like that happens, it makes you sick to your stomach. He's been working so hard to get this done. At least he can use what was cut wrong for the posts for the paddocks. Needless to say, for 4 weeks worth of Saturdays, he has done a ton to improve the property.

Lexi loves Aladdin. She kept saying, "Butt? Butt?" and then pointing to the movie. We figured out she is saying, "Abu? Abu?" with a little bit of a T sound. Abu is the monkey that is Aladdin's side kick throughout the movie. I will say that the opening song is just about as annoying as a song can be. I hear "Arabian nnnniiiigghts, and Arabian ddddaaayyyyss" about 10 times a day.

She loves to give hugs and says, "AAAhhhhh" - like how lovely that we hare hugging. She is very polite about greeting people or taking her leave. She says Hi and, even if she is just going in the next room, says Bye and waves. She likes to talk to Davis so when he comes in she says, "Hiiii Dadis".

She does a number of funny things every day while entertaining herself. Marti and I wondered what people would think if we started acting like she does: Randomly running in circles and yelling the whole time, pulling on our pants, poking stuff for no reason and asking for something over and over until someone gave it to us. Can you imagine? We would be total outcasts. However, it would be fun to conduct a study on that just see how people react.