I Wish I Could Say...

that my lack of blogging is due to copious amounts of time spent riding and fussing over my horse but that is most certainly NOT the case.  We have been sick.  My daughter and I have been to Urgent Care numerous times over the last three weeks.  It started with pink eye for here then moved into very sore throats for the both of us and an ear infection for her.  Then she had an allergic reaction to her eye drops.  By the next weekend of course I had pink eye.  After mostly getting the pink eye beat back I developed a sinus infection.  Then we both came down with another head cold.  Today my poor baby was on the couch, unable to keep anything in her stomach.  And her eyes are getting red again.  I'm not sure yet if she is getting another case of pink eye or if her eyes are just red because she is tired.  It is common for her eyes to be red when she is tired so I am just crossing my fingers that that is the case.

Before all off this illness descended upon our household I did manage to get in a couple of rides.  The second one was the best, starting out in the indoor just fiddling around and then moving outside.  In the indoor I was working a little on turns on the forehand.  Rosie knows how to do them but always tries to walk out of them.  At first she acted like she had no idea what I wanted from her so I got down and moved her haunches around her forelegs by putting my fingers into her side and removing them when she crossed her hind feet over.  She did this quite well and without hesitation.  So I hopped back into the saddle and asked her again.  At first she still acted like she didn't know what I wanted so I asked again and this time she did it.  We practiced that for a bit along with some sidepassing and working on going past the scary arena corners with out cutting them completely.  I'm not much for arena work so we headed outside to go cruise the open field behind the barn.  I wanted to do this partly because I like riding up there and partly because there was snow on the ground and I hadn't yet ridden Rosie in the snow.  Not that she hadn't seen snow, she had many times in Colorado and a little bit here but we hadn't had a chance to ride in it yet.  It was pretty chilly up on that hill but we still had a good time.  Later I figured out with the wind chill it was about 6 degrees out.  Brrrr.  We went out to dinner with some friends of ours later that evening and I just could not get warm and of course they sat us near the door.  It was the only table they had that was big enough for seven of us but boy was I chilly!  I'm still glad I went riding though.  I love riding in the snow!  I just wish it didn't have to be so darn cold to do so!  I wish I had some pictures but I was the only one crazy enough to be out that day so there aren't any.

Year in Review, Continued

Lets see if I can bust out a few more months on this year gone by.

March:  I don't remember anything in particular about March and I don't have many pictures from that month.  If I don't have any pictures, then not much happened.  I take at least a small camera everywhere.  So I guess we will just say that the snow melted and spring spring.

Some lovely crocuses from my front yard.

April:  By this time we are all getting a little spring feverish.  Outside we go.

We even made it to opening day of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  They even won!  I don't think I would attend opening day again though.  It was basically a drunk fest for the college kids and my daughter got to hear some very colorful language.  I guess that is a part of life but I still didn't enjoy it.  We have attended at other times of the season and had a very nice time.

My beautiful old dog getting some fresh air.

We also went to Phoenix for my husband's grandmother's 90th birthday.  I handed my daughter the camera while we were having dinner at P.F. Chang's to keep her entertained.  I have a lot of pictures that look like this.

She actually got some nice pictures of the other family members but since I have no idea if they want to be splashed all over this blog this is the only picture I feel comfortable posting.  I also managed to get in another state on my "I Want to Ride a Horse In All 50 States" quest.  Apparently we found some tequila while wandering around in the desert because that is the only way I can explain the position of that helmet.  Next time I will try and fit my own helmet in my suitcase.

Drifter and I in what is left of the desert in Scottsdale.

Phoenix was warm and beautiful as usual.

Unfortunately Pittsburgh experienced some wild weather while we were gone and we came home to this little mess on our roof.  We got it fixed quickly though and nothing else was damaged thankfully.

To be continued...