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....