"If you don't have nice things to say then don't say it"

There is a saying that we were taught when we were little, but I think it needs to be said again. In the last week in one of my classes I couldn’t help but overhear what two students were talking about behind me. They were talking about how a certain girl in one of their classes didn’t fit their “profile”. By profile I mean, she didn’t have on the “name brand” clothes. “If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say it!”
I thought that these students would just say what they had to say and stop, but they kept right on going all through class. It was very annoying; to think they had nothing else better to talk about then this girl for 50 minutes. They were saying that she had on out-of-date clothes, and they were probably from Wal-Mart, they laughed good and hard about that. I hate to be a b***h, but not everyone has a lot of money; they make do with what they have or what they can afford. Yes, I have “name brand” clothes, but I have many things from Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and many other department stores that don’t carry “name brand” clothes. I think that everyone does! These are the kind of people that take things for granite, they are spoiled. It’s great that they have money to buy all the “name brand” clothes, but there is no need to make fun of people that can’t buy those things.
I just thought that this needed to be addressed, if I would’ve known who they were talking about I probably would have went and told her but I don’t know who “she” is. There is nothing worse than people that talk behind your back.

Excitement of fall

The first day of fall is September 22, fall is my favorite time of the year. The leaves start to turn and fall, the air gets a chill, so you know that huntin season is right around the corner. Some of you may think that it is weird for girls to like hunting but I love all kinds of hunting. I went squirrel huning with my boyfriend, Dexter and his brother Detrick last weekend, it was pretty fun, we got 22 squirrels. I refused to clean them but will shoot them out of the tree, the guys clean the squirrels. Soon bow season starts, I don't bow hunt but Dexter does, every morning and afternoon he sits in one of his multiple bow stands. I went with him once and got yelled at for being to loud so I don't go anymore, there isn't room in that tiny little tree stand for two anyway. I don't know how many of you coon hunt but I can't wait until November 1st in Iowa, that's opening night. We take pride in our dogs, they receive better care during season then we do. Normally on opening night we take our old black and tan, Cheif, and run him with my dog Duke. We start out about dusk so we are in the woods when it is dark. There is nothing more exciting then to see/hear our dogs howling on a coon track, well maybe after they get them treed. We hunt about half the night with those two dogs, then come back home and switch to two fresh dogs. We hunt the rest of the night until daybreak. We will then come home skin our coon and meet up with our friends to see how many they got opening night. Our record for opening night is 9 coon. Hopefully we'll beat that this year.

Who I am

Hi! My name is Andrea and I’m going to tell you a little bit about myself. I live in Iowa with my 19-month old daughter Dakota, and my boyfriend Dexter. My life consists of my family, my animals, and rodeo. I have one sister who lives in Montrose, CO, she is engaged to be married. They moved out there about 7 months ago, so its been something to get use to, not having her just a few hours away. My parents live not that far from here, so I have break every once in a while. I like having them close to me, their support means everything.

We raise coon hunting dogs, we currently have five coon dogs and two other dogs. We raised most of them from puppies and work with them all of the time. We also have quite a few kitty’s, that Dakota just adores. We don’t have any horses right now but I have a few that I‘ve “adopted”. I love horses and everything to do with them, especially, rodeo and showing. I have many awards and ribbon to go along with my passion. I love being in the barn, doing something with my animals.

I’m not the only one in my family that is passionate about rodeo, Dexter and Dakota love the sport also. Dexter is a bull riding addict, he has been riding since he was a little bitty boy in little britches rodeo. He used to ride bareback, and saddle bronc horses, along with his bull riding. Now he just rides bulls, he is gone every weekend to a rodeo somewhere. I go with him whenever I can, but with work and now school, I’ve had to cut back some. He has been to many bull riding finals : Little Britches, High School Rodeo, IRA, CPR, and NABA. We traveled to Memphis, TN last January for the NABA finals, that was quite a experience. On August 30, we attend the CPR finals and Dexter won first place. I couldn’t be prouder of him!

My daughter Dakota, also loves the sport of rodeo. She loves to watch her daddy ride, and probably screams louder then I do. She loves horses too. I take her riding with me all the time. We ride a horse named Dewitt, he is 20 some years old, but still has a lot of spunk left in him. Dewitt is a retired bareback horse, you can flank him and he’ll buck his heart out or saddle him up and ride right off.

I hope that you all enjoy the pictures!