Well, I was disappointed in my daughter who does horseback riding. She made me look stupid. LOL
Actually, I’m REALLY proud of her. After the seatbelt post in regards to her riding lesson, she proved me wrong this last lesson by actually maintaining a bit more balance and control on how high her body lifted. (yay she’s getting stronger!)

Unfortunately the camera died right after this video was shot so I couldn’t get more, but we have lessons tonight so I will take more footage and get it uploaded. Sorry about the poor quality (it’s so hard to get good shots in there) and for the short clip (I’ll see if I can get more tonight).

Enjoy (and don’t laugh too hard at J (her trainer) and her funny “say Whoooooaaaaa trot!” - it makes me giggle every time I watch this!

No, this isn’t my Thursday Thirteen, but I have nothing witty to post today, so I thought I’d show off my favorite 13 pictures of Max, our very pampered Shih Tzu. I’m sure at least two of them or so have shown up on here before, but these are my favorites. Check back tomorrow for my Thursday Thirteen which are not pictures of Max.

Yup, tomorrow morning I have to go face Gyllian and his donkey friend again. And after what happened last week, I’m a bit nervous. LOL

How many times will I have to put Gyllian back in the stall before I get the door closed quick enough to keep T-man inside?

On a much brighter note, the shy donkey seems to really like me, which A (the owner) says is really something. He is so timid but he comes right when I come say hi. So he must not hate me too much. Yay for small miracles. Now if I could just convince Gyllian I’m not so bad. LOL

Yes, as an adult I got to attend a slumber party this past weekend.

My daughter’s stable held a sleepover in the indoor arena Saturday night. We got there at 5 o’clock and the kids got to run the jumps and courses on foot while we waited for everyone to arrive. Then they set up obstacle courses using the jumps and it kept the kids busy for over an hour!

We ate cheeseburgers for dinner and retired into the inside arena to find out about the nights events. My friend J (the trainer), another trainer M, and my friend (who hooked us up with the barn) Sheri and myself were the only adults among - count ‘em - 51 girls ranging in age from 4-16! However, it was an absolute blast! A (the owner of the barn) made an appearance every now and again, but her and hubby were in charge of the bonfire.

We made horse cookies (for the horses), the girls created t-shirts with puffy paint, they got to make s’mores over a huge bonfire, go on a tractor pull ride and participate in a horse show (where they were the horses and they jumped the jumps). It was seriously fun. At 11:45pm the kids were all going strong while all the adults were basically leaning against a wall trying to keep ourselves awake. LOL

We finally got 48 girls sleeping bags arranged on an enormous tarp (we looked like a refugee camp), along with mine and J’s sleeping bags and M chose to sleep in some chairs. LOL Sherri left with her two girls at 1:00am once everyone was pretty much asleep.

In the morning we had Krispy Kremes and milk and the kids had to quick clean up the indoor arena ’cause J’s first lesson was at 9am! Oh and the adults were treated to Starbucks by some sweet parents who arrived early to help clean up.

Melissa, Brielle and I came home and crashed by 9:30am! We were exhausted.

I will totally do that again, except next year I’m bringing my air mattress!

I was also deemed the coolest mom ever by several of the girls who promptly told me that “my mom would never do this”. Thankfully Brielle and Melissa both think I’m a cool mom!

Did I really sign on for this again?

He’s so darn cute, but boy I forgot how hard it was having a puppy. I’ve been giving advice to a few friends for months to help them with theirs, I get mine and I feel like I’m a new mom with a newborn. Honestly, he’s a pretty good puppy. The very first night he slept through the WHOLE night. That was like 10:30pm to about 7:30am. It was weird, but good. Then the second night, he cried for about an hour off and on, then slept until 5:45am. Not as good as day 1. Then last night was better than night 2. He did cry a few times when I put him in his crate (which is close to my bed) and he fell asleep around 10:45pm. He got back up at 6am. I get up every morning around 5:30 so it actually works out and we hadn’t even tried that on purpose. Funny pup.

Anyway, his birthday was June 4. So I guess he turned 11 weeks old yesterday. He’s so darn tiny. The people we got him from told us we should feed him twice a day 1/3 cup. Yeah. Well. No.

See, there is one thing I know and its dogs/puppies. My mother ran the Newfoundland Rescue group of St. Louis during my childhood. We had dogs ALL the time among our FOUR dogs - one Australian Shepherd and three Newfoundlands (not to mention when I was REALLY young we had three Old English Sheep Dogs) I’m a dog girl. I grew up learning everything there was to know. My childhood vacations were not spent at Disney World and Disney Land like other people’s. Nope. Never even been to either. My childhood vacations were spent at dog shows. Yup. About a dozen a year or so, plus every single local one known to man.

So, Max is FAR to little to eat only twice a day and a whole 1/3 cup at a time. He barely eats  1/4 cup. Usually gets about halfway through it, and then is full and ready to play. So we took him to their vet (which we were told to do) and got him checked out yesterday. Their guy was nice, but I like my vet WAY better. Anyway, he did tell me he thought the people were loony if they told me 1/3 cup 2x’s a day and I could tell he thought I had heard wrong. No. It was written on his paperwork so I showed him. He agreed with me that it should be 1/4 cup three times a day instead and if he started finishing it faster to increase it about a tablespoon at a time/meal.

So, that’s my Max story for the week. I’ll share more next week.

We have rain again today so I’m hoping to get some serious writing done. I am two articles away from my minimum goal this month, so I figure I’m ahead of the game I might as well keep on writing.

See ya in a little bit.

Have I completely lost my mind?

Meet Max. Yup. We added to the herd.

He’s a 9 week old Shih Tzu pup.

More on Max soon!

A day late, a dollar short. We were busy all day yesterday and I thought I had set this to go up before we left, apparently not. So here is my Saturday Photo Hunt, on well….Sunday  

I liked the theme for today, however figuring out which picture I wanted to use what again, a challenge. Why do I seem to have that problem? Either I have nothing that goes, or I have too many to pick from. LOL

Anyway, “tiny” = our puppy when we got her. Her name is Molly.

That was in February. Now she’s a bit bigger.

If I Didn’t Have a Dog or Cat…I could walk around the yard barefoot in safety.

I liked this theme a lot. In fact, the kids all helped this time. We decided that these were the most colorful pictures (part of a series of colorful pictures) that we have. Unfortunately, Bandit is no longer with us, so the pictures are particularly special to us.