October came and was gone before I knew it

 Kicked off October with some really beautiful riding days, the colors were changing and the weather was perfect.

Dixie has been under saddle since May and is still a green horse but with each ride she gets better and better and her little bucks are starting to disappear, thankfully. I can still ride but I'm too old for a bronco.

My friend from Arizona came and stayed for a week. We became Instagram buddies by following each others horse adventures and as luck would have it, we met in person in the Netherlands at the Friesian Stallion show in 2020.

 Coincidently we happened to be in the same tour group and later stayed in touch through an app called Marco Polo.

We had lots of horse adventures while she was here. We spent the majority of our time at Bronny Friesians, where I bought Dixie. The Bron's organize the Netherlands trip every year and we were fortunate to get in on the tour as it was the last trip before COVID hit.

Since there wasn't a shortage of horses, Brittany had a tall 17 hand gelding to ride. She got the pleasure of riding in the orchards and seeing the beautiful trees loaded with apples. Something an Arizona girl doesn't see everyday.

Then the Bron's hosted a fun three day event full of carriage driving games and scenic tours in the orchard. 

This was an experience for Brittany as she has never been in a carriage pulled by Friesians. 

Heres Will Bron driving his team around the obstacles in their arena. It's not as easy as he makes it look, I'm still working on driving one horse and not at that speed haha.

Our time together flew and the next thing I knew I was taking her to the airport. 

We had such a great time together and even though they say, "All good things must come to an end," they really didn't.

 I had four days to get ready to fly to California as I was meeting our oldest son and his family for a three day vacation. 

October was getting better by the day.

We spent one day at Universal Studios and the other two in Disneyland. 

The boys are 8 years old and tall enough to ride all the adult rides. Running off of little sleep we covered almost every inch of  Disneyland.

But wait there's more!

After saying our goodbyes and parting with wonderful memories I flew into Portland OR, got in my car and drove straight to Vancouver to see Miss Elsie before going home.

Here's Elsie stuffing toy coins in her dress because you know, every girl needs a little mad money stashed away.

It was an excellent way of capping of my vacation and after a couple of hours together it was time to hit the road. 

When her mom told her to say goodbye she blew a kiss to her, Elsie was thinking she was coming with me haha. Bye mom.

I returned home but only for a couple of days to regroup then took another day trip to visit Dereks girl Hannah. They are expecting a baby in December and I thought it would be fun to have lunch and a spa day with her.

Here she is 7 months pregnant. Derek and Hannah took a baby moon to Cabo just a few weeks before my visit.

They are expecting a girl which will be fun for Elsie to have a girl cousin. 

My grandma cup has been filled but October was not quite over.

The Wednesday before Halloween my friends and I had a horsey Halloween party. We rode in the vineyard, ate lunch then had a  costume photo shoot with the horses.

Ok so not everyone dressed up

On Thursday our neighbor kids from our old house came over and we had a pumpkin carving party. It's a tradition we've been doing for the last 10 years.

A few festive treats for the crew

Then came Halloween.
Halloween just wouldn't be Halloween if there wasn't a spooky dinner involved so here's what was on the menu.

Roasted Rodent

A web of potatoes

Ghoulish asparagus

Stuffed snake

A bloody brain

and cupcakes to die for.

I was so full there was no room for candy.

Later we topped of the evening by watching Hocus Pocus and just like, that October was over.

 

November? How did we get here?

 Let's go all the way back to September and see what happened.

For starters Dixie and I had another CDE, Combined Driving Event. For only our second show, we placed first in the dressage test, zoomed through the marathon course and completed the cones course without getting eliminated.  Forgive me for bragging but I was very proud of my young horse. 

She was so much more confident in the arena and when we got onto the marathon course she was a speed demon as if saying, I got this mom. 

The water portion of the course had me a bit nervous and I wasn't sure she was going to go through it, but she did!

The cones course was tight with sharp turns. I didn't want to eliminate so I kept her at a slower pace so I wouldn't miss any cones or knock off any balls.

Dixie was absolutely amazing and I couldn't be more pleased with her.
  

After the event the husband and I took the horses and dogs camping for a week at our favorite horse park. We rode in the morning and drove in the evening, I think the pups got the hang of running along side the horses while we rode and enjoyed sitting in the carriage as we drove around.

Camping was so relaxing. Having the dogs and horses with us there was no reason to worry or feel the pressure to leave. 

Then the fair rolled into town, this was a big deal since last year it was cancelled. The husband and I are big fair goers and with the season pass its our tradition to go every night for dinner and dessert, see a bit of the attractions then leave.

By the time the fair was over, we've eaten everything and seen it all.

We like to ride our scooters because it makes for easy parking.  Basically we can park them anywhere without having to pay.

 

By saving the $10.00 a day parking fee we were able to put the money to better use, like more food.

I was able to squeeze in a few riding days with the girls before my friend from Arizona came to visit which brings us to October....

Our first Combined Driving Event (CDE)

 Dixie and I were big timing and decided to test our driving skills. We entered a Combined Driving Event which consists of a dressage test, a marathon course and a cones course. 

The definition of driven dressage is:

 Horses and ponies and their drivers drive individually in specified patterns and gaits to demonstrate the skills, obedience and development appropriate to their levels of training before one or more judges.

Dressage develops and displays polish, discipline and athleticism of equine and driver dancing together.

 Dixie and I entered at the training level because, you gotta start somewhere.

The following day was the marathon course. 

The training level was a 6K course with 5 obstacles in various fields. Each obstacle has a set of  3 hazards to maneuver around. This is a timed course.

It's mandatory to have a navigator riding with you for safety reasons. Should anything go wrong such as an accident or carriage trouble you have someone there to help you.

A navigator also assists in guiding the driver through the course. Since I needed one I decided to recruit my husband.

 I told him this is the one time he can give directions without me arguing haha.

Day three was the cones course. 

The course consisted of 20 sets of cones, each set is numbered with a white number on the left and a red number on the right.

As long as you enter the set of cones numerically with the red number  on your right you can choose your own pattern.

To make it even more challenging, each set of cones has orange balls sitting on top of them. The object is to go through each set quickly and smoothly without knocking the balls off.

It's ok to make a mistake as long as you correct yourself before entering the next set of cones.

Otherwise it's game over, the technical delegate will blow his whistle and you must leave the arena immediately and you are automatically eliminated. 

This is also a timed course.

The cones course was the most stressful for me as Dixie had nervous energy durning the warmup. She would rear if she had to stand still and had a rough trot as we were warming up. 

 I just knew we were going to knock over every ball on the course.

Once the 'go' whistle blew and we entered the arena Dixie's whole demeanor changed. She was collected, calm and had her game on.

Everything seemed so quiet and still, and my confidence grew. We sailed through the first set of 13 cones with only one ball down.

After we crossed 15 I thought I heard a whistle blow but was convinced it wasn't directed towards us.

Dixie and I were in the zone. Surely the whistle was for the warmup area so we continued on.

 We crossed the finish with only one ball down! Man I was so proud of my girl.

The technical delegate approached the carriage and explained how I got off course and must not have heard his whistle.

What???? Dang! I couldn't believe it. I had walked that course numerous times prior to the test. I had it memorized and still managed to get off course. 

Cones 14 had more than one set to go through. 14A, 14B, 14C and 14D.

As I went through 14A I immediately  was looking for 15 and totally blew passed the rest of  14B,C and D.

I feel like I failed my horse. She had her act together and I spaced. I am glad we ended up finishing the course even though technically we should have left the arena but hey, we're in training  haha.

It was such a fun three days and an amazing first experience for both of us. 

I know I learned a lot and with so many different sights, sounds and other horses around it was good for Dixie as well.

I'm definitely looking forward to more showing and hopefully to staying on course.