More plans

Somehow December came and went and I only posted twice.  I was busy though making this:



Totally a joint effort with Aimee and Alyssa, thank goodness for good friends willing to play in a snow storm!
I still haven't gotten a response from Practical Horseman, but fingers and toes are crossed.  I mean seriously, how cool would it be to get the Martins way out here in the wild wild west.  Joking...but not really.

yep, not totally joking

Anyways, I mentioned 'more plans.'  How does Kentucky in October sound???  Hopefully some of you are guessing correctly.  I just submitted my application to be one of the 500 trainers for the 2016 Thoroughbred Makeover!  

Double thumbs up

So yeah, more fingers and more toes crossed that I get accepted, then the search is on for a suitable horse (with plans to sell him (or her) at the Makeover).  AANNDDD then, I'm thinking a totally epic meetup with east coast bloggers!

Hopefully the new horse will also be amazing at selfies

What is life without plans, dreams, goals, and friends?

Snow and Sun and Such

Apparently I can only deal with so many media things at once, but the video is now submitted so I have enough brain power to blog again.

Majestic snow

Also, started reading the Outlander books again, I read the first one and a half while in Canada back in August and then forced myself to take a break.  You guys it was bad, I was reading until my eyes were in pain, AND I STILL COULDN'T PUT THE BOOK DOWN.  So, I'm back down the rabbit hole.  It is ok though this time since my arena is soup.

Charlie judging me, while using my pillow

 These books though, oh my goodness.  Can't even.

Dancer says he can't even either

 I went to Phoenix for a week and had a blast.  So good to see the hubby!  Also we won a race!  But, one of our favorite horses got claimed, it was nice to get a last win picture with him, but sad to say goodbye.

No more funny pictures of Blackie

The racehorses are doing good though, hubby has some new promising projects.  One project though is less promising and he is convinced that he should be an eventer.  Darnit hubby you should not be enabling me!  But really, the horse is already wicked good at snuggling.

Proof of the snuggles

 He is three and cute and super calm.  He will probably run for while yet, then I can't wait to play with him and keep or sell either way he will be great!  Hubby is also surprisingly good at picking out horses that will excel at their second carrer, soooo we will see.

Back home wishing it would snow instead of rain

 In case you had forgotten, Prisoner thought you should all know he still has the best mustache though!  I was so pleased with him when I got home and after more than a week off he was foot perfect for videoing in the snow.
 

Champion and he knows it

 Notice that cute bridle he is wearing???   Well, Alyssa ordered a bridle for miss Bacon and it was too small.  I had been lusting over it on the website as I'm convinced I can pretend Prisoner is my mini Blueberry (Valegro's barn name) if he is wearing a black and white patent bridle.  Anyways I mentioned to my husband that if he was wanting to get me something really neat that he could pretend Alyssa was his personal shopper and buy the too small bridle from her.   He went for it!  Happy 4 year anniversary to me!

Much shine, such sparkle

 I haven't even gotten to really ride him in it yet except on the snow adventure.  Can't wait to dress up with the dressage saddle and look fancy.

That face though

Well I'm afraid I can't concentrate here anymore, the swirling mists of the Scottish highlands are calling.  Not kidding, time to read.

When riding can't happen selfies do

My Words

So I'm sitting here trying to come up with content and scrolling through facebook (not always a great idea), when suddenly I find this:

Apparently my most used words

I actually thought is was pretty cool, one of those facebook quiz generator things (that I'm convinced will one day infect my phone or computer but are too tempting to not click on #Iknowyouareguiltytoo).   Then I remembered that Nicole is running the Haiku contest and I thought I should use some of my most popular words and also make Haiku art.  So here you go.

Before I refreshed my memory on counting syllables, #overthinking

Mostly I think I just wanted to play with pictures

Can't Haiku

I actually like playing at writing poetry, but the haiku is not something I have experience with, not like I need to tell you that after reading them.  Either way totally fun.

Back again, did I mention I rode in a rodeo?

You know what happens when you forget your computer when you go to Canada?  You loose your newly regained blogging mojo.  But here I am again!  Canada was a blast, the hubby and I really enjoyed getting to relax.

Lots of hiking by the ocean

Before we left I spur of the moment rode in a benefit rodeo at our friend's ranch, the hubby was supposed to go with but he was busy getting ready for our trip, *sheepish grin.*  I went to announce and when I got there they put me up on a horse.  It was so much fun! Aimee and Alyssa came too and we had all had a great time!  We forgot to get a group shot though.  Thank you Alyssa for bringing your camera!

Yes I even won a trophy!

I rode in all the games, like pole bending and the potato race.  It was my first time doing anything western other than ponying the races.  The mare I rode was lovely, I've heard about her for two years so I was really excited to finally get to meet her and have the privilege of riding her.  She is primarily a rope horse, but she was totally willing to deal with my newbiness when it comes to western and by the end we seemed to be communicating pretty well.

Zooming across the finish line

This used to be one of our race horses!

 Here we have the potato race, there are two tires, one has three potatoes in it.  You have to poke each potato and carry it to the other tire, one at a time.  More difficult than it sounds.

Poke the potato

Carry it to other tire

The goat tying was fun, and a crack up.  You gallop down to where our friend (and my farrier) is holding the goat.  Jump off the horse and tie a ribbon around the goats tail.

Vroom!

Can you tell I ride english? #nofootinstirrupdismount

Hands up to stop the clock after successful tail tying!

Omg I had so much fun all day!

At one point we all ran barrels on our own two feet, thank goodness there are no pictures of that!  I won my trophy for roping the dummy!  The actual ropers didn't participate in that event to give the rest of us a chance.

Don't chuck the rope in the air and dance, doesn't work

"No this is how"

#cowgirl

Booyah, get that cow.

Smiling so big I look insane

The last event I participated in was the barrel racing.  I was definitely slow, but not embarrassingly so.  It was my very first time ever!  Misty, the most awesome horse in the world, probably could have done it better without me aboard.

First barrel

Second barrel

Third barrel

Wheee run home!

So there you have it, my first rodeo!  After I was done I got to watch Misty do her thing in the roping, woah she is awesome!  I was even more impressed with how quiet she was with me, she gets the hops waiting in the box for the cow to break.

They won!

Truly the middle of nowhere

So I knew I would have no service on the way to Kalispell, because the road is nothing but mountains and canyons (freaking beautiful).  Turns out that T-mobile believes that no one needs internet up there.  Seriously, I could call and text but that is it, I couldn't even listen to voicemail.  I was sad to miss out on potential blogger meet ups considering we hadn't traded numbers yet, but really the lack of internet was kind of freeing.  I could leave my phone to charge and wander off and really not care.  No worries though I still took a kagillion (scientific term) pictures.

From the big hill on xc, looking back towards stabling

Heading towards Lolo Pass along the Lochsa river

Buck Davidson and The Apprentice 

Foys Lake (right by Herron Park)

Prisoner looking for his friend behind the haybag

We pulled out at 4am on Tuesday and arrived a not so bad 10 hours later at 2pm.  The horses traveled well and settled in perfectly.  It really is one of the most beautiful drives that you can take!  I want to do a few posts about this awesome trip!  Let me just say that getting to watch so many beautiful horses and riders was inspiring.  I'm all about remastering my forward ride to the jumps, too many nutty horses has gotten me too backed off, I'm so ready to keep/start forming Prisoner into the best horse he can be!

Cute racehorses and vivid sunsets

I'm on mobile bigger still, so that means random posts. Posts that don't need picture captions.  I have been adventuring around Arizona and my what a beautiful state.  I have also been finding all sorts of cute racehorses, but no I'm not bringing one home.