Eat, Drink and Be Merry

 Despite all that is happening right now we had a lovely Christmas. 

My two adult children came home. My son brought his dog, Ripley (she's made appearances on the blog) and my daughter brought her two kittens. If you do the math that makes 2 dogs, 3 cats (with our Willow) and 4 adults in one small farm house. You would expect it to be chaos but it really wasn't. We had a great time. 

oooh Christmas

The weather just before Christmas was cold rain followed by plummeting temperatures. The wind was fierce too. I basically resigned myself to not riding and to begin pining for my own indoor. But then the weather turned mild and the ring thawed and I was able to ride both Christmas eve and Christmas day. 

Christmas eve and Carmen was listening for Santa's bells

In between that I baked (cookies, chocolate cake, cinnamon buns, peanut butter balls) and cooked (full Christmas dinner) and made cocktails (I made a wine cocktail with San Pelligrino and orange juice it was delicious and then a mudslide with kailua and baileys).  We are all so full right now. 

My family was very good to me this year. My son got me the third book in a series that was autographed by the author. That was exciting. My daughter bought me an ice cream maker! First of all I love ice cream. If I ever turn down ice cream there is something wrong with me- take me to the hospital right away. When I was a child we visited some friends and they made ice cream with a churn and snow. I was shocked- I didn't know you could make ice cream and it seemed like magic to me. 

wizardry- turning cream and chocolate into ice cream

My first attempt was chocolate with salted caramel chips. Spoiler alert,  it was delicious- velvety and rich chocolatey. Now I'm scheming for all the things I can do with this.....

Speaking of possibilities - Ed bought me a Pivo! If you aren't familiar, a Pivo is a 'smart tripod'. You download an app and connect it to your phone. then when you ride it videos and follows you around.  I tried it out for my Boxing day ride (yes, I rode 3 days in a row!) 

 I used a gorilla pod on one of my jump standards in the middle of the ring. 

 note the best mare standing while I set this up

It did lose me once but otherwise worked as advertised. Here's a clip of some of my pre-ride warm up:

Our rides these days tend to be around 30-45 minutes. The ground is not perfect and I don't want to make Carmen sore. I like to use winter to keep it light and fun. I find that she's really listening to my half-halts. 

white horse on a dark background definitely helps

ears forward for the camera!

not her best side but still pretty good

I am excited to use this for lessons. I won't use it for every ride on my own but will use it periodically to help me stay on track. It's supposed to be able to be used for a remote lesson so I'm wondering if I can make that work. 

I have had Christmas' that were truly awful. So it was nice to have such a nice, low key one that was about the simple pleasures: family, food and ponies.  And lots of love.