2011 Spur Horse Show Awards Banquet

Equestrian Girl and I really like our open show series - especially me since I get to ride at these shows!  And we usually do pretty good and get some nice awards.

The anti-gravity chairs were a big hit - you can't really see the spur logo on the pillows.

This was the door prize table - lots of good stuff!

More awards.

The plaques in the back were hand painted and have dry erase boards at the bottom.

Stella was a great president this year and made things run so smooth!

The walk trot girls cleaned up!

So did I - the adult walk trot champion.  Those are spur straps and a sleazy for Stanley.

Equestrian Girl got a hand painted wooden tray.

Webers Inn - the hotel where we have the banquet remodeled this room - it looked really nice.

Equestrian Girl and her friend Connor's Girl.

 Some of our loot after we got home.

Thanksgiving

While I really do feel we have a lot to be thankful for, Thanksgiving around our house is pretty low key.  It still involves a lot of cooking which I spent most of the morning doing - including making up some stuff for the coming weeks but once it was all prepped and the turkey in the oven, Equestrian Girl and I gathered up some treats for Stanley and headed to the barn.  I'm not sure he was as happy to see us as we were to see him but the carrots made up for it.

We had a nice ride and then headed for home as Scott called us to say the meat thermometer buzzer had gone off on the turkey.  It had only been 2 hours - no way!  Sure enough, it wasn't done so I popped it back in the oven and got busy with the mashed potatoes.  An hour later and that meat thermometer, which I had moved to the breast was still showing the same temp! What the...oh.  The oven was off.  I had never checked it when I put the turkey back in.  So we did a little speed roasting and used the microwave to finish it off.  From the looks on the faces below, I don't think it mattered.

Home Cookin'

This blog isn't really supposed to be about cooking and Lord knows that's sure not my "thing" but I do like having a family dinner every night or as often as possible.  I found a website recently that I LOVE.  It's called Big Oven.  You can plan your dinner menu out for weeks and even include the recipes right in the plan.  Better yet - it will create a shopping list!
This recipe was easy and GREAT!  Kids and Scott all loved it and it was sooooo easy.

I hate the hassle of planning meals in advance but truly know it makes a huge difference in how we eat.  When I don't plan, we don't eat nearly as healthy and a few too many nights become, "eat what you can find" nights.  Or "free choice" as Motocross Boy calls them.

Another Detroit Sunrise

This was November 16th...I've never paid all that much attention to how much the sun moves over in the winter compared to summer before starting this sunrise thing I have going.  You can see the sun is coming up very much over Windsor.

Compare that to this picture taken in September where it's way over to the left over the river:

Now I need to find one that was from earlier in the summer that I thought I had and can't find!

Motocross at Bulldogs

The beginning of the season started out with me at every single race since Scott was working Saturdays but it seems like I hardly got to go at all towards the end...I even missed the LAST race of the season because we squeezed in that Youth Show...though that was the one where Motocross Boy/Man broke his clavicle so maybe it's good I wasn't there.  

The last one I did go to was at Bulldogs which is in Millington - not far from Birch Run.  This was at the starting gate of the 85 C class.  Motocross Boy is on the far end and gets a good start.

Goat Herding

This was actually a while ago but I don't think I blogged about it...

We were out messing around with Stanley in the outdoor arena and the goats from next door drifted over to eat the grass close to the end of the arena.  Equestrian Girl decided to "herd them" with Stanley.  They've done this before and it's always such a hoot.  But this time I ran down to the arena to try to get a bit on video...

IEA Scrimmage

Equestrian Girl had a scrimmage for her IEA team last weekend.  It was near Columbus, OH in a private barn run by one of the team coaches.  It was set up just like a regular meet but a smaller facility.

I knew she would be drawing the name of a horse to ride and I knew it might not be a great horse or anything.  I did NOT expect to be so nervous having her get on a totally unknown horse.  

The pictures are horrible.  Not only is my camera still not working quite right, but the lighting was way less than desirable.  I tried lightening them up - you can see the difference between the 2nd and 3rd shot.

For horsemanship Eq Girl rode a horse named Elvis.  He was a big gray quarter horse and was very good for the most part.  He wasn't too crazy about another horse that kicked at him but I can't blame him for that.

Later she rode MO for reining.  Mo was a very strong forward moving horse.  We got to see him go with a girl earlier in the class and it was very clear that he LIKED to do flying lead changes but this class called for a simple change and you'd get points off for doing a flying lead change.  So the coaches told her to bring him WAY down to a stop to get him to change properly and to get him collected back up again.  She did good - 3rd out of 9!

Falling in love...

It's not what it sounds like.  I fell in love with a little filly this weekend while helping to take her sale pictures.  She's just a weanling...just a baby!  I could never be in the horse breeding/selling business.

Getting babies to square up and pose isn't easy.

Uh Daisy, you aren't an Arab.

You want me to come there, Dad?

How's this?  This is pretty good!!

Wait!  Whatcha doing over there?

Wink. Wink.  I know you think I'm cute!

This is pretty good!!!

Michigan Fall Sunset

Some of the best sunsets are in the fall in Michigan. This one came after what seemed like a month of rain…the contrails and swirling clouds just added to the beauty.

A friend shows Stanley!

Equestrian Girl doesn't let many people ride Stanley but she does let her friend K ride him.  K wasn't able to bring her own horse to the Youth Show so Equestrian Girl had her take Stanley in the Western Pleasure Open class.

She looked good and ready to go!

It was a big class - 40 split into 2 halves.

2011 All Breed Youth Show

After the FCC our horse show season was supposed to be done.  It wasn't.  We packed back up on Thursday and went to the All Breed Youth Show back at the MSU Pavilion where we had just left on Sunday.  The show had just been approved by APHA so the points would count towards year end...so off we went.

Since the show is on Halloween weekend they had a decorating contest for the stalls.  We didn't have time to get together decorations but the people next to us spread their decorations onto our stalls too!

We started the show not long after we arrived on Thursday.  It was a good thing we had just finished a show since we didn't have much time to get ready.  Stanley was already clipped and just needed a touch up.  Madison got a layer of lipstick and was ready for trail class.

And off she went to the arena.

The trail pattern was hard - can you see how it spells out YOUTH?  Lots and lots of poles to get over which are not Stanley's favorite - especially when his toes need a trim and he hadn't been able to practice them at all.

One of the hardest obstacles was the gate.  Normally this is easy peasy but can you see the raised pole between the corn stalks at the bottom?  And those corn stalks look an awful lot like hay...

Luckily Stanley was one of the few horses that didn't take a bit of the corn.  Some almost pulled over the poles that they were attached to!!  It ended up being one of their worst trail patterns ever, however, it was for everyone else too and they ended up with a 2nd!

The next morning was showmanship.  Unfortunately, I had to work so Equestrian Girl had to get ready without my help.  Her buddy was there though and they did a good job.

Good enough to get 1st place!

Abby the Wonder Dog came with us this show.  She kept a close eye on everything going on.

In both directions.

The classes were pretty big.  The APHA classes were 12-13 with the open classes often being over 40. The girls spent some time passing out coupons for a $10 discount to the APHA horses that don't normally show at the breed shows.

The stock horse judge was Tim Abler. He's always liked Stanley and Equestrian Girl and placed them well.  The biggest win of the show was in Western Riding where they took 1st place out of 21 riders at 12:30 in the morning!

Stanley was looking perky for horsemanship...

But he might have just been looking for a way to go home.  He was tired.

We also managed to find the "perfect" horsemanship shirt for next year that just happens to perfectly match the red chaps we already have.  It was a good deal so we bought it....