Last night, my half-brother's half-siblings, Hannah (15) and Ryder (18), and Ryder's girlfriend were out later than I was up, picking up Hannah's best friend from the airport at 1 AM. It's now a full house, and today was a long and full day. I consider my half-brother's half-siblings my true siblings. We've known each other for almost 13 years now, and spent 3 of those years living together. While Ryder isn't much of a city boy anymore, and Hannah has been trained to deal with it on long camping trips, Hannah's friend and Ryder's girlfriend are hardcore city girls from the mountains of Kelowna, BC. 

Hannah and her friend are both terrified of horses, and summoned me when they needed to hose off some rubber floor mats. The hose was in the water trough, between the two horse pens, and they were scared to go inside. The hose was connected to a sprayer that didn't fit through the fence, so we couldn't just drag it out. At first, they wanted me to just go get it for them, but I wasn't so easy. I made them come with me to "get over" their fear of the horses. They came with, but were nervously giggling and clinging to me the whole time. For some reason, the girls brought the rubber mats, which made things a little more interesting. The horses were curious, and were sticking their heads between our shoulders, and biting at the mats. Melody sneezed on Hannah's friend, which made her scream, drop her share of the mats, and sprint back to the gate. She almost dropped her phone in the process, but saved it before it hit the sand. I gathered the mats with Hannah, as well as the the sprayer head, and dragged it all back with Hannah hugging my shoulders and half giggling, half screaming, the whole time. The horses were closely following us, and were nudging Hannah as we walked. (Or more like, I was walking and Hannah was darting all over the place because of the horses.) Each time the horses pressed their heads against us, Hannah dug her nails deeper and deeper into my shoulders, and tried to jump on my back. I just put a smile on my face and pretended to not notice any pain.

Hannah survived, and helped me pull in the hose. As we hosed down the mats, there was rolling thunder in the distance. Ryder and his girlfriend were sitting on the front porch. After yesterday and the night before's events, Ryder's girlfriend got very nervous when we heard the thunder, and started to panic when we saw yet another system racing across the plains towards us. I didn't really pay attention to her freak out. I just continued to hose down the mats and picked them up to bring them to Hannah's car.

I got soaked. The system came in a lot faster than I expected, and hit very hard. I was blasted with rain, hail, and very strong cold wind (I'm glad I wore my hydrophobic motocross jersey today). I just threw the mats into the backseat as the car door slammed into the side of me, let the wind slam the door shut for me, and charged back to the house. Meanwhile, Ryder was in the garage with his girlfriend, who was having a panic attack, and desperately trying to calm her down. I joined them, and told her that everything was fine. I was just out in it, and I told her it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. She responded by shouting, "But you were almost blown away!"

"No I was not!" I rolled my eyes and grinned at Ryder, "I just got hit hard with a car door. I'm just fine!" Which is true. I was just fine, other than being very cold and very wet, and a little sore. 

I bickered with her for a bit. She tried to make the storm out to be apocalyptic, brought up yesterday's storms, and was convinced we were all gonna die, but I tried to tell her it was just her anxiety talking, and not to listen to herself, and I've been through way worse. But, as I know from first-hand experience, you can't even talk yourself out of a panic attack, let alone talk your friends out of theirs. Meanwhile, the storm was getting worse. The rain was pouring harder, the hail was growing larger, the trees were bending lower and lower, and the horses were running around in their pens with their ears pinned. I told Ryder to bring his girlfriend into the house, and I'd watch it from the garage. In all honesty, my ears were bleeding from Ryder's girlfriend's shrilling, and I was getting more and more irritated.

As the storm went on, I sat on the back of our ATV in the garage and took sips of my soda. Nothing very interesting happened. A few branches fell and the lawn flooded, but other than that, the storm quickly left, the wind died down, and the sun came out. When the rain was tapering off, I decided to get Hannah's rubber floor mats and actually put them on the floor. It was still windy enough to where I had to fight the door to get inside Hannah's car, but wasn't like it was before. 

I stepped inside the house, and Hannah immediately greeted me with a smoothie as a "thank you" for helping her out. I don't usually like smoothies all that much, especially green smoothies like she gave me, but the stuff she made was really good and I chugged it down. As I sat at the kitchen table and tried to dry off by the AC, Ryder and his girlfriend came up from the basement and joined me. Ryder's girlfriend was still a little scared, but was calming down. Ryder, on the other hand, was bored and trying to start stuff with me. 

"Keep your gross paws off me!" I growled as I scooted away from him. 

"Make me!" Ryder smirked. 

"No! Just... go away! Last time you got near me I almost got pink eye! So just like, leave!" I said as Ryder continued to playfully poke and punch at me. 

Ryder laughed, and then reached down to grab my leg, and I fought back this time. Pretty soon, we were both on our feet. I grabbed a sharpie off the table, pulled off the lid, and chased Ryder around the house with it. Ryder grabbed a mini hockey stick off the couch nearby, and this time I was the one who was running. He chased me outside, and I picked up a fallen branch to defend myself. Ryder and I beat the crap out each other on the muddy front lawn, and finally stopped when he whacked me where I was slammed by a car door. I dropped to my knees laughing, and called him a few vulgar names, and he almost felt bad for hitting me where it actually hurt. Keyword: Almost. 

Later, when the sun was starting to set, I was challenged to another dirtbike race with Ryder. But first, Ryder's girlfriend wanted to go for a ride, so she jumped on the dirtbike behind Ryder, and together they rode away into the sunset. 

I was stuck mixing more gas for my dirtbike, but once I filled up my tank, I also disappeared into the sunset. I rode a mile south, then another half-mile east, and then retraced my tracks. There were no signs of them until I rode back into our neighborhood, and saw them riding over the crest of the hill. I pinned it and passed them like they were standing still on the road. I kept my body low towards the dirtbike as I raced down the other side of the hill, and skidded on my right heel around the bend. Ryder was riding pretty slow with his girlfriend on the back, and I waited so I could ride next to them back home. 

Ryder and I decided to have a second race. It was getting pretty dark by then, but I knew we'd be safe. So, like before, we started at the stop sign, and this time I didn't slow down when we raced down the other side of the hill. I matched Ryder's speed near the bottom, and we slowed down very fast around the bend. We turned around, and Ryder took off without me, so I chased him the whole way home. Ryder's girlfriend was filming us the whole time, and once again, posted me to her social media. 

As we neared the stop sign at the end of the road, I noticed that Ryder wasn't slowing down. I was a bit concerned as I rode up behind him, and then he whiskey-throttled into the ditch. Unlike myself, Ryder wasn't thrown into the air. Of course, Ryder's dirtbike is a four-stroke, so there wasn't much power in first gear to throw him off. Ryder landed on his feet and then fell on his arm, but quickly got up to retrieve his dirtbike. I got off my dirtbike to help, leaving it on its side on the roadside, and a very kind man who was driving by and witnessed the whole thing, pulled over to help us too. However, even with all three of us pushing and pulling, we couldn't get the bike out of the ditch. The rain had made the sand very soft, and made it impossible for us to pull it out of the ditch. Clarke (my siblings' dad), heard about the crash and came over to help. While the four of us did manage to pull the 300 pound dirtbike out of the ditch, it still took us a lot of time and effort. A 5th person stopped to check on us, but we assured her that we were ok. Ryder's dirtbike was spewing gas out of the side, which is never a good sign, but eventually it stopped. The dirtbike started just fine, and I lifted my dirtbike back up and kicked it to life as well. We thanked the man (who's actually a neighbor) for his help, and followed Clarke home for the night. Besides a couple scrapes, Ryder's ok. 

Now that the day is over, I'm very tired. I'll be home tomorrow, and I really don't plan on going anywhere special for a long time. I've had a blast these last few days or so, as I always do when my Canadian siblings come down, but I'm exhausted and I'll definitely feel pretty slow the next few days. But, it was all worth it.

I had fun raising hell with Ryder, teaching Hannah and her friend about horses while they hid behind me, and enjoyed Ryder's girlfriend's company. While I refused to be in any of her videos, except for the ones she took while I was riding, I enjoyed listening to her talk about her career and what she's been able to make of herself. She appreciated my presence during the storms, as Hannah and her friend really appreciated my help with the horses and the floor mats. And Ryder can't wait to raise some hell with me again, and neither can I. Hopefully, the Canadians will stay longer when they come back next year.