Dirty Santa

So now I have to wait a whole year until I can play dirty santa again. Last night the GCC-ODS party was lots of fun - Ivy and Alaina and Miranda were the big little Junior winners and they were very excited. Denise and Jurgen and Patty and Silka and Patty and Danta got goodies too - Nicole and Elvis took Pico and me in First but they deserve it and we came in a happy 2nd. And, most exciting, Larry Couch won best Husband Volunteer. Way cool. It was so fun to see horsey friends and re-live the fab moments of 2008. Now, on to 2009.

Although the weather wasn't to cold today the wind was blasting out of the south which made for difficult lessons on Pico and Splash. Every now and then a blast of sandy wind would give Patty and me dermabrasion treatments but I don't know if that helped our complexions or just hurt. Pico had a spook right off the bat but then did really well while we worked on simple changes on serpentine and then on canter departs from the walk and downward transitions to back. To the right, Pico did pretty well even managing to change leads a couple of times a stride after taking the wrong one. Our downward transitions were very sloppy. Left lead, another story. Very difficult canter departs about 1/2 the time on the wrong lead. But we made some improvement and stopped for the day. Splash was not thrilled with the neck stretcher but did some fairly good stand/trot transitions. Canter caused displeasure and he bucked several times but the wind was so strong by that time that several dust'nados made riding difficult so we stopped as soon as we got canter without buck. Then, out of the wind Nancy, Patty and I went to Graham's for the usual good food and fun talk. Yaya.