Merry CHRISTmas!

We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and remembers that the reason we celebrate Christ's birth is because he was destined to be our Savior.
Matt & Tafra

El caballo loco

Here's the crazy horse.

Our new addition

It happened faster than I expected it to, but here's Zephyr, the newest addition to our family. :) Zora, though she's bigger than him, is scared of him, and he's portraying himself as the tough man on campus, but I'm pretty certain they're going to figure it all out eventually.
He has a bit of a cold, so it's made his left eye a bit icky.

Rest in peace, Boo bear

One last outside adventure for my most beloved Boo cat.

He was a great kitty. I loved him so much.

The reason I hate snow, more than normal

Conveniently enough, I had been taking pictures at the barn as the snow fell on November 22nd. As you can see, the rear left side of our truck is okay.

So topping a hill, there was a Jeep Cherokee coming up. Long story short: I braked, slid on ice, smashed her Jeep and the left end of our truck. :( Went into the ditch, up the hill, then back into the ditch. Very, very sucky. Below, the damage.
Thank God no one was hurt, and that insurance will take care of things. Of course, our premium now stands to increase. I'm praying that since we've been with the company so long and have had no previous claims, they'll be favorable toward us.

The recipe box

Last week I had the urge to be homey, creative. That doesn't come around too often, but was inspired by the fact we're having Josh and Lindsey over for Thanksgiving, and I've never had the opportunity (or desire) to really get fancy with a dinner setting. So this urge led to scanning the blogs that my co-worker likes to visit, which then led to me spotting a blog about creating a unique recipe box. And thus... My new recipe box.

This was my pile of recipes I started with.

These were my supplies. I bought both 3 x 5 and 4 x6 cards so that I could make my own dividers. I used a 3 x 5 and my insurance card to create the tabs, and cut out a pattern.

And this was the end result! I bought Sharpies in cool colors to do my recipes. Of course I had to get my bright blue! The box isn't the most creative or pretty of things, but I'm on a budget, so that's what I get.

More scared of me than me of him

This is a longhorn belonging to Lonnie Ledbetter, an Appaloosa breeder/exhibitor in Granbury, Texas. He gave me and Jeannie (PHJ Editor and Appaloosa lover) a tour of his place while we were there to photograph his stallion. He has 3 longhorns, all of which are scared of humans, which is good, because I wouldn't want to be near that 6-foot spread! They were pretty cool though.
If Texas wasn't flat, it wouldn't be a bad place to live...

WSU vs. ASU

Last weekend WSU suffered another defeat at the hands of Arizona State University. :( Poor Cougs. But the game was fun, we went with Josh, Lindsey, Ace, Ben, Tim and Rachel.

CSU v. UI

Well, here's a little bit of the fourth quarter during the Rams loss :( to the Vandals. The game was 31 - 29, so it was a close one for sure. The Rams led the first half and most of the third quarter, but then the Vandals stole the momentum and never looked back.
Contrary to what some might think, I'm not sore about the loss, I'm sad. It's really, really sad to think about the CSU Rams losing to the UI Vandals, because until this year, the Vandals sucked. Not that CSU ever has had a stellar football team, but if they could beat CU, what happened against the Vandals??
Either way it was a fun game, and there was more than just me as a Ram fan! We think that the Rams' quarterback Stucker's parents were there, and there were probably 25-30 other Ram fans near us. It was cool. Right in front of us was another group, and we all yelled "That's another CSU first down" with the arm point when the Rams got the first down.
It's okay though, I still love my Rammies.

That's love!

Matt and I have been married for over 2 years now! :D

More draft pics!

Brian and his daughter, Allie

4-in-hand team racing barrels. Mike Nagle bet another teamster (w/ a mule team) he could go faster, but the 2-in-hand mule team beat them by 2 seconds.

Draft horse barrel racing!

The Friesian team, 8-in-hand.

A Nagle team

The Belgian that won the ladies cart class

Draft horse show

This 8-horse hitch was a Fresian hitch from Alberta, Canada, brought in as a exhibition team.

This is Diane with Ace.

September 27th I drove to Sandpoint, ID to attend the draft horse show that Brian and his family attend every year (Brian's parents, Larry and Sheila, own Paradise). They had taken five of their Percherons up, and had done at least fairly well; one first place, a few seconds, some fourths.
I got to see Ace in ladies' cart, Ace with Brian's daughter Allie in a kids' class, and then Brian with King, Justin, Joy and Ace in a teamster class (required drivers to complete certain tasks, such as "docking," or backing in like a semi would be docked for unloading.
I had such a sense of pride that "my boys" were looking so good and doing so well. Ace is a particularly flashy horse, and has a lot of lift in his legs; Joy also does, so they make a good lead team. King and Justin are not as flashy, so they're the wheel horses.
Right off the bat there was a very exciting (if awful) occurrence: a driver came off his wagon during the "Gambler's Choice" class (driver has 3 minutes to do as many obstacles as possible for points). He had a team of mules and had been doing a figure eight. As far as I could tell, he started to stand to look back to see if his wagon had hit a cone and something happened—he might have hit the wagon brake, but he was flung forward. Because I was literally sitting in the direction he was headed, I watched as he flew off the wagon. It appeared as though he had jumped, but no one in their right mind would jump off a wagon behind his team!
He came down, and I believe he was stepped on by a mule, and I'm pretty sure the first wagon wheel missed him, but the second (heavier and larger) wheel ran over him. The team took off, and immediately there were people leaping the fence to help.
The mules and wagon slammed into the south arena fence but kept going, as idiotic "helpers" attempted to stop the mules by throwing their hands up at them and standing in front of them. Others went to the driver's side, and we were later told by the announcer that one of the first to respond was a neurosurgeon.
The mules made another lap, and then the judge leapt into the wagon and climbed up to the seat. Although the lines were on the ground, I'm sure he had some type of reason for getting up there. He tried to take control of the situation and get people out of the way, and eventually the mules were stopped. (I was thinking the whole time: Let them run! As long as they don't run anyone else over, they'll stop when they're good and tired!)
In the end, the driver was taken to the hospital, but was reported to only be sore with nothing broken. Lucky guy!

Cutest buckskin filly in the world!

This is Toots, Candis' quarter horse filly out of her mare, Luna. Luna is a pocket pet, loves human attention, and Toots is like her momma! She is the prettiest little thing (other than Lena, of course) and if I had the money for 2, I'd buy her in a heartbeat!

Autumn already??

Wish that I had something exciting to blog about. Other than hoping to go to the draft horse show in Sandpoint, this has been an uneventful week. Of course, if I wanted to blog about the drama of my workplace, I could fill a whole novel, but someone would probably find it then I'd get fired. Suffice to say that some women don't deserve the job they have, and are vindictive, lying, awful persons.
I have to feed a.m. and p.m. all weekend. :) That's okay of course.

Seattle

Thanks for coming Mom and Kasi! Miss you guys already. You left your map, so good thing you didn't get lost going home! Here we are in front of the Space Needle.

Yo ho it's off to Bend I go!

Instead of going to the Oregon coast to celebrate our 2-year anniversary, I'll be driving to Redmond, Oregon, for a horse show. (Not bitter, really...) I guess the coast trip can come sometime in September.
But it's our second anniversary September 1, so here's an internet toast to my wonderful husband, Matt, who is amazing, loving, funny, handsome, and did I mention amazing? Especially for putting up with a girl who is a volatile firework of moods!

Our company picnic

Things we might've overheard at our company picnic:

"Where's the other horse?" "Well, we were too broke to buy hot dogs."

"Are we taking a group photo?" "Well, a third of the staff is missing, and another third is registration. "

"Are those chocolate chips in the whipped cream?" "No, those are flies."

"Are you smarter than a fifth grader?" "I'm not sure I'm smarter than a first grader!"

Another win!

The Crossing won tonight's game 28-2, obviously a close game (just kidding).
Here's Matt hitting. :)

And those horse show results!

JB, as usual, was his spectacular self. We didn't win everything, but we did well, and I can appreciate the judge's ability to recognize strengths and weaknesses.
The St. Maries arena was complete mud and clay from the rainstorm on Friday, so classes were held in the Judd Building, which was basically a cow arena. Maybe 25 feet across and 50 feet long. Let's just say things were tight.
JB actually lopes better when in a smaller space, so that wasn't a problem, but it was nerve wracking thinking we were either going to get run over or forced into another horse.
Anyway, our results:

• 4th in Showmanship
• 2nd in Western Pleasure
• 1st in Western Equitation
• 5th in Bareback Equitation
• 4th in English Pleasure
• 2nd in English Equitation
• 2nd in Trail

So, at the day's end, we won high-point! What was nice is that there were riders there who were actually competitive on our level, so it wasn't just a win-everything-because-we're-better day. That sounds cocky, I know, but JB is a really nice horse and generally at open shows you have the crazies who run around the arena at lightning speed. Would like to know why we got second in trail, but alas, somethings are impossible to know.

Why so serious?

Matt never smiles in his photos, but here he is coaching third base at The Crossing's softball game last night. They won by 22 to 12. :)
I did my first bike ride to Pullman—7 miles! It actually wasn't that bad.

The horse girl

Matt had the first softball game of the season with our church team last night, which I'm happy to report they won. He would have to give the play-by-play, because I wasn't there...And apparently, everyone knows that if I'm not where Matt is, there's only one place I could be—the barn! And of course, they're correct.
To be fair, I have a horse show this weekend and having lost a week on the Chief Joe, JB lost conditioning and I've had to focus on him. It was funny to hear that everyone knows that my life generally revolves around that big green barn, and I'm not ashamed to say, "Yes, I am the horse girl!"
I'm thankful to have a husband who understands that my horse babies are my sanity, and the one thing besides him that I truly enjoy. I'm blessed to be able to have Lena in Moscow, double blessed to have JB to ride and take care of and triple blessed because my husband is patient with my horse-obsessive-ness.

Lolo car show

On the drive back from Big Sky country, Kevin (trail coordinator) and I stopped at Lolo Hot Springs and checked out the car show, and indulged in the hot springs of course! I got a couple of cool photos, so I'm sharing! Oh, and the black 1965 Mustang? It's MINE. In my dreams.

Matt's baptism

Matt was baptized July 12, 2009, in the Clearwater River near Lewiston, Idaho, by Pastor John Houser and Ace Davis. He's truly blessed to have great men to lead, teach and support him in his walk with Christ.
{Sorry the video is low quality; I forgot to tell Ben that the zoom on the camera stinks.}

We're both blessed by our Moscow family, like the Harmons and Corinne. They mean so much to us!

Genesee Horse show

JB the most excellent Appaloosa was well-behaved (for the most part) and had an excellent day of classes yesterday. Though the judging isn't worth discussing, it was still a great day for me and my most wonderful steed.
It wasn't as hot as it was forecast to be (surprise!) which I was grateful for, and the dust was managed as best as possible, and that was really nice. I was excited to do English classes again, until I put on my boots and recalled that I had barely broken them in in 2006 (and it has indeed been 3 years since I last wore them). But it was still fun, and I re-discovered how easy it is to post in the appropriate attire.
Western classes went well, JB also did very well in the command class, doing "rollbacks" and everything! Our rollbacks were mostly pivots and a lope off, but that counts for a pleasure horse!
Long day, because the trail judge created a very fun (and long) course. It was: work a gate, open mailbox and throw the Nerf football to the judge—I suck at throwing footballs!—carry a bucket of water from one barrel to the next, empty the bucket then drop the bucket; push an inflated soccer ball through 2 cones; sidepass right, pivot 270 degrees right, sidepass left; back through an L, walk back, work the straddle poles (three poles laid out, and the horse's feet have to fall on either side of the middle pole. Impossible.); go over a bridge, lope (with lead changes) around 4 cones; dismount; ground tie and sit for 30 seconds; then re-mount using a hay bale.
JB is an excellent horse, having never truly been trained for trail, he still takes everything in stride! I'm so proud of him, and very, very lucky to have the opportunity to ride him.
Video shows you where we were!

On top of the hill

Having video upload problems

Ok, created this blog to share video, and the videos won't upload. Tafra the tech is on it! Peace!