Fabulous Fridays (and other stuff)

Well, summer break is rapidly drawing to a close (only 1 week and 6 days left until I leave!), and I have been trying to cram in a few more fun activities and other things during the last couple weeks. Last weekend I got together with a friend from college, and we spent the day together shopping, talking, and all such things that girls do together. Also, there is a neat little park really close to our house; it's right on a river, and the river is shallow enough in the summer that one can walk all the way across it at certain points. There are lots of rocks and boulders around in the river that are great fun to climb around on, and plenty of smooth stones for skipping purposes as well. So we've been down there a few times lately as well.

The other thing I've done a couple of times this summer is going to Emerald Downs with my Dad. Emerald Downs is our local thoroughbred horse racing track, and their season runs from April through September. On Friday evenings they have an 8-race card, which is the one we usually go to. The first time we went, they were handing out 'Fabulous Friday' t-shirts at the gate, which would get us in free on Fridays if we wore them. So we wore them the second time we went, just the other day. I, unfortunately, had been on rather a bad losing streak (26 races, to be exact), but thankfully I changed that the other night, with a $4 bet on a big bay horse called Military Deputy in the 7th race. He charged home to win a mile and quarter race by some 3 or 4 lengths. It was beautiful. :) He went off at 6-1 odds, which gave me $28 in return for my original 4. I was satisfied. :) The other cool thing that happened that night was the horse-shoe throwing competition. It works like this: if you want to enter, you put your name in a drawing when you come in the gate, and they pick out three names, and those are the people that get to compete. Well, wonder of wonders, they picked my name, so I and two other people got to go down to the winner's circle and throw horse-shoes. I didn't win, but it was still fun; we got to meet one of the jockeys. It was a good night, all told.

I went on a major shopping spree yesterday. Luckily for me, though, I seem to have a talent for picking out clothes that I really like, and then discovering that they're on sale, too. So I got a bunch of really cute new outfits for a pretty reasonable price. I've also already procured the costume I'm going to wear to our Halloween dance this year. I positively *adore* it.

Well, that's pretty much been my life lately. Most likely I won't write again until I'm back at school, so adieu for the present.