A shower never felt so good! We just got home after 12 hours at a stable or in a car. Camp went well today. We had a new round of kiddos and a couple from last week and so it was more adjusting.  We arrived to the stables and got the horses ready and already it felt like it was 100 degrees. Poor Snipper (pics at the bottom) was so hot e got to hose him down. Today we had one of the older boys who is too big to ride, do some leading with Snipper, both boy and horse were super happy about that. The boy just smiled, looking so proud that he was next to Snipper, and Snipper was so happy to be being a therapy horse. He's such a joy to work with, the boy and he horse. 

This was Snipper observing how dirty I got for his sake.

Music class was fabulous. The moms this week are especially awesome and they sang tons of traditional Chinese songs as the music teacher played the piano and I did my best to hum along. It was mesmerizing. The kids were great too. They sat and listened and swayed along.  Maybe I'll be able to post a video one day.

After he kids left, we had to solve e problem of Snipper not having enough bedding in his stall. So, Priscilla, myself and the other girl staying here, cleverly decided to choose what we thought was bedding and haul a huge bag over to the stall. After 20 minutes of heaving and hoeing, and climbing on top of feed bags and stepping over a wagon, we put it in Snipper's bed. We took some cute pictures of the "after" all out hard work, only to lead Snipper into his stall and have him eat the feed. (Which is really bad to eat). So, then after whining a little and figuring "it's for Snipper" we bucked up, scooped out the old bedding and out the proper one in. That's why you get for doing things your way in a new different place. Snipper was happy though and that's all that matters.

After working with another pony we might use tomorrow, it was time to go to another stable to see if it will be possible to move camp rerelease for the future. The minute we got out of the car we saw a German shepherd, sadly locked up, several kittens and lo and behold, some puppies. I was in heaven!! While Priscilla and her director here did official stuff, the girls and I hung out with the horses in the barn and the puppies. Although we got ourselves thoroughly dirty, and my allergies were mad at me for being in all the dust and dirt, it was fun to just be surrounded by animals.

The puppy!!

I like to think she was pretty happy. One of the horses we met in the barn we looked at.

Our team!! Minus Remy who joined us this week.

Afterwards we still had a few errands to run and got home almost exactly 12 hours from the time we left this morning.  I can repeatedly say, although it was a long day, it's still not as exhausting as my first year of teaching and I absolutely love the work we are doing.

Today 7/12 /2016

Today we had a rainy day, but another great one, and the air is cleaner with the rain. Apparently Beijing is in a valley, so when the pollution comes in, it has no way of getting out. When it rains, or is breezy, people here get happy because they know it might wipe out some of the pollution. And, lo and behold, after the rain we had blue skies, which is very rare here.

Although I'm not seeing the touristy things in Beijing, I'm totally fine with that because I cannot express how much I love the work we do when we're out here. I look forward every morning to going to get Snipper and getting him ready for the kids. I think God must have a special place in his heart for children with disabilities because when you see them happy, I don't think there's anything sweeter. I wish everyone at home could see the awesomeness of Priscilla and her organization. The horses interact beautifully with the children and seeing and hearing how happy the kids are on the and around the horse, is inexplainable.

That's all for today. I cooked an Italian dinner this evening and I'm already for bed. Tomorrow we have some TV crew coming out to do some filming on HOPE so we have to be up early and be bright eyed tomorrow. Hopefully this TV filming will help out HOPE!!

I like Chinese food, but I'm starting to crave some simple dishes from home.