Riding in a one horse open carriage...

When mom and I went shopping in Montgomery one Saturday, we spotted a carriage service that took riders around EastChase and of course we wanted to do it! So, last Sunday we drug dad and Morgan up there....okay we really didn't have to drag them. They wanted to make us happy! We had a blast. Most of you are probably thinking, why in the world would a girl that grew up with horses want to ride to Montgomery to ride in a carriage. Well, I have no idea, but it was fun and different. Of course I also fell in love with the horse. He was so sweet to be so big! His shoulder was above my head...that's big! Next, we went to Panera Bread Co. for supper. We each had a bowl of soup and a sandwich of our choice which was delicious. It was a wonderful memory to share about Chirstmas 2011. :)

I am thankful (cont.)....

I was reminded yesterday of a few more things that I am thankful for so I am writing again.

12.) I am very thankful for my new family. My in-laws have taken me in as if I had always been there and I love them very much.

13.) I have already mentioned my family, but I feel I should say how thankful I am for my Mimi & Popsie and my Grandpa.

14.) I am very thankful that I got to know my Grandma even for a little while. I know she is looking down on her family and smiling. I love you Grandma and can't wait to see you again!

15.) Today being Veterans Day, I am thankful for our military who has fought hard in many wars to ensure our freedom and security here in the United States of America. I feel honored to work directly for the Army Aviation to help ensure their safety. (Which reminds me, I need to tell you a little about what I do in another blog!)

16.) I thankful that I have been blessed with so many things to be thankful for!

That's it for now I guess. I could go on and on about all the things I am thankful for but I would be wasting my life typing about it!

I am thankful....

So as many of you know, it is Fall Time which means cooler weather, longer sleeves and pants, changing and falling leaves, but it also means.....WE ARE GETTING CLOSER TO CHRISTMAS! :)

It also means that Thanksgiving is drawing near. Two weeks from tomorrow to be exact. I have been inspired by everyone on Facebook doing the daily "I am thankful for today." I have not been diligent enough to even start this endeavor, but I would like to use this blog for exactly that.

1.) I am most thankful for Jesus, my Savoir. I am thankful that he loved me enough to die for me.

2.) I am thankful for my family. They are the absolute best!

3.) I am thankful for my mom who cooks supper for Morgan and me on most Monday and Tuesday nights simply because she loves us :)

4.) I am thankful for my dad, my hero. I know I can always look to him for comfort and support.

5.)  I am thankful for my husband who loves me, supports me, and will do anything for me.

6.) I am thankful that I have been blessed to grow up with horses. My first love. :)

7.) I am thankful for my awesome job. I may complain about the drive, but I can't complain about the money, the benefits, and having every other Friday off!

8.) I am thankful for a warm and cozy home.

9.)  I am thankful for Sweet Home Baptist Church. The church I grew up in, where my dad is pastor, and where I can always feel safe and loved.

10.) I am thankful for the little things in life, clothes to wear, blankets, shoes, etc.

11.) I am thankful for my and my family's health.

There are so many more things I am thankful for, but I would like to think this is my top ten list....er 11. :)

I hope that this Holiday season we can all stop and think about the things we are thankful for and remember why we are so blessed to have these things.

"Giving thanks always and for everything to

God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Ephesians 5:20

My Best Friends & My Partners

Yesterday we had quite a scare at the Joyner/Wells household. Casey, one of horses, was sick yesterday morning at feed time. Mom and Dad took him to Auburn and found out he was colicing. Colic just pretty much means everything that he has been eating lately was getting stuck in his gut. This is not good at all for a horse. The doctor treating him at Auburn called this morning to say he was doing better than yesterday, but still needs to be watched so they are keeping him until Saturday. Anyway, all this inspired me to blog about my best friends and my partners:

Achey Break - Belle

I like to call Belle my baby girl even though she is 20 years old. Let me tell you though, 90% of the time she acts like a five year old especially when it's time to do her job which she loves! I got her going into my Sophomore year of high school and high school rodeo. She was eleven and I was fifteen at the time. Belle is the sweetest horse you could ever imagine, and she loves to nuzzle and rub. She also loves attention, especially from little girls. Who knows why, but she will just stand there and let little girls rub and brush her all day without ever even flinching. Belle and I have that special connection between a horse and rider that every horse person knows doesn't come around very often.

I took some of my bridal pictures with Belle which was quite an experience. Let's just say Belle has never seen me in a dress and she didn't seem to like it at all! She looked at me as if to say, "Who are you and what have you done with my Julie!?" We got some made though and they turned out great. I was even able to get on her with my dress!

Juno Bug - Casey

Casey came to the Joyner Farm in 2006. I was ready to move up to a faster horse, so we began looking and found Casey in Florida. We didn't get along right away by any means, but mom and dad saw potential in us. It took some time, but eventually I figured him out and he figured me out. Case, as I call him, definitely has his quirks such as cribbing (chewing on stuff), doesn't like people to touch his ears, and he is the complete opposite of Belle in that he isn't a "social" horse. He could care less if you gave him any attention or none, and he is what we like to call "high matinance." He needs all the attention to stay healthy. Aside from his quirks, however, Case is a BLAST to run barrels on. He knows his job, and he does it well!

Mister Harley - Harley

 Harley is the baby, well he is six, but he is still my baby. My friend, Kayla Coker, just started him on the barrels in May, and I just got him back a few weekends ago so I can finish him. Harley was given to me as a graduation present by Jeff & Carol Hogner. Wow what a graduation present right!? Jeff always told me he wanted to give me a horse to take to National Finals Rodeo. I hope I can do that one day in his memory, but for right now we are just shooting for the championship in my local shows! I did just started running him, you know! :)

Harley has the biggest personality out of all my horses. He hates being still, and gets so bored in his stall he will play with the water in his bucket to occupy himself. He already seems to love running barrels, and I hope he will continue and be my champion!

Paint Me A Texas - Tex

Tex was my first high school rodeo. He was one of those special horses that I clicked with right away. The first rodeo I ever ran in him was in Troy. We won 8th in both the barrels and the poles. He gave 110% every time we went running into the arena. Tex may not have been the fastest horse around, but he was certainly known in Alabama as a great pole bending horse. He seemed to "flow" through the poles as he weaved. Tex and I qualified for the National High School Finals twice, and he went with me once to New Mexico. My senior year, on Christmas Eve, I went out to feed and found him limping barely able to walk. Come to find out he broke a bone in his shoulder. To this day, we have no idea what happened. He seemed to try really hard to get better, but just couldn't. Not long before graduation, we had to say goodbye. Tex will always be remembered in the Joyner household as one of the greats.

My Favorite Products

Yes, I know it has been forever since I have blogged. Oh well, I'm doing it know. To tell the truth, sometimes I feel my life is a little too boring to blog about! It's the same thing everyday: Get up, drive to work, work, drive home from work, rest and eat supper, sleep, and then do it all over again. See not much to say there......so I'm going to talk about some of my favorite "I have and love" or "I want" products :)

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I totally love my Amazon Kindle. If you are even the slightest book reader, you need the Amazon Kindle. It's great. I don't know about you, but I always get paper cuts on my thumbs from holding the book pages, no more of that!! Plus, Amazon has tons of free books. I have found many many great books that I otherwise wouldn't have read.

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I am really mad at Johnson & Johnson. When I was at Auburn, I found this great lavender scented lotion. The lotion is said to "Melt Away Stress." Couldn't really tell that it did this, but it smelled great!! I told mom about it, and now she loves it also! Anyway back to my statement of being mad: Mom nor I have not been able to find this stuff anywhere here lately and I'm running low on my last bottle!!! Not good at all. So wanted...Johnson & Johnson Lavender Lotion in a light purple bottle picutred below. If you see any, I need it!! Just kidding don't get me any if you see, but you can tell me where you saw it!!!

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Ok, some of you may not know this, but I'm a total gadget geek. I love new "tech" products, even though I may not be able to get it right away or before everyone else has it. My latest gadget want is the Apple Ipad 2. I don't really know why I would technically "need" this, but I sure would like to have one. Mostly just because it looks cool! I have a great Sony Vaoi laptop that can probably do everything the Ipad can do and probably better, but you know what, you can't hold the laptop in one hand and it's definitely not touch screen :) And just look how thin it is!! 



What I have





What I want :)





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Bermuda Shorts....Not too long and not too short...Dress them up or dress them down. If you don't already know, bermuda shorts come to right above the knee, perfect right!? I really do not understand how some of those girls can wear such short shorts. I'm not condeming them or anything for it, you know, "Whatever floats your boat." I just know that it is not comfortable to me at all. I am not constantly pulling at the bottom of the shorts when I wear bermuda shorts, and I'm not worried about my thighs or anything else that should be covered up by shorts coming out!

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Well I guess that is it for now. Thanks for reading. :) My next idea for blogging....my favorite movies....yeah that could take a while because needless to say....I love movies!! :)

Cowing Around....

Recently Morgan has acquired a herd of cows: 2 longhorns, 1 milk cow, 22 black cows, and 3 calves so far (more on the way pretty soon!). I never thought that watching a herd of cows and giving them hay could be so much fun. It amazes me how each one can have a personality. If you stay out there with them long enough, you begin to see each personality emerge. Which ones like to be the center of attention, which ones like to stay to themselves, etc.

Lucy, the milk cow, is my absolute favorite! She can be a pain because she feels she can do anything she pleases, but she allows anyone to rub all over her like she was a big dog! She loves attention and LOTS AND LOTS of food! 

Lucy, the milk cow

Our first baby born for the year was a longhorn baby. I call her mother Dapples because she appears to have spots, or dapples, all over her body. I haven't decided on a name for the baby, but I'm not going to do that until Morgan says we are gonna keep her and raise her :)

 

The longhorn, Dapples, and her baby

 Because all the black cows are well black, they look the same. So most of the time Morgan and I call them by their number in the ear tag. There a couple of cows we have name based on the number, however. Such as, number one is Uno and number thirteen is Lucky.  The second baby of the year was born to No. 6. He is already a month old and a big boy. He is also a little more independent than the other two calves so he pictured below by himself because he never would go near his mom while we were there! Our third baby of the season was born to "No. 2". She is the a small gal, black with one little white dot on her forehead.

Bull calf, second baby

The third baby of year and her Mom

Morgan takes great pride in his herd and is sure to give them plenty of hay during the winter so they will all stay fat and healthy! He has started to "unroll" the hay so the cows wouldn't be crowded around it and experimenting to see if they wouldn't waste so much this way.

Morgan getting the hay to take to the cows

Morgan unrolling the hay

A few in the herd

2010 National Champions!

I've been wondering lately, WHY DID THEY HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER I GRADUATED TO WIN A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!! Oh well....I am still so happy they did. I still can't wrap my head around it. Auburn University, the school I graduated from, is now the National Champions of College football. I would have loved to have been in Glendale, Arizona for the game, but it was great just watching it on TV. Dad banned us from watching the game at their house because we watched the first half of the Iron Bowl there, and we all know how that was! We went home for the second half and it all turned around, thankfully! Anyway, because of this, we were not allowed to watch the National Championship at the parents house! 

Tomorrow, Morgan and I hope to go to Montgomery to see the National Championship Coach's Trophy. I remember last year, all the Auburn fans (not me of course!) were making fun of Alabama for taking the trophy to Walmart for the fans to see, but here Auburn is doing the same thing! Oh well, I still want to go see it!

I still can't believe the game was so low scoring. I knew there was the chance of it coming down to a field goal, in perfect Auburn style, but I thought the final score would have at least been in the 40's! It couldn't have been any better though! Well, truthfully, a blowout win would've been nice, but that isn't any fun now is it!

The Game-Winning Field Goal by Senior Wes Byrum