Coco

Have I ever mentioned I own a chihuahua? Her name is Coco and she started out as Kylie's dog.

She is now our shared dog - Here she is:

I love that picture. She is sitting on my lap. She looks really big but she is not.

That is her by my computer monitor with one of our reps dog - Boo. Anyway I can't believe what a great dog we found (on craigslist) She is cranky sometimes and very playful but we have bonded more then any other dog I have had (except my poodle Ceasar that I had a long time ago). Just wanted to share Coco with everyone!

I forgot Pictures

Here is a picture of the new truck!

and Zoey!

New Year - New Beginning?

Or maybe not, but I don't want to be a whiner so on to positive things. Lately life has consisted of taking my kids to practices and work, the fun things in life :). Haley is in basketball and Club volleyball, so she has basketball every night after school and then Club volleyball 2 nights a week from 7 to 9. Volleyball tournaments are every other weekend and basketball games are after school. Her first volleyball tournament was the weekend of the 23rd and they lost but learned alot. Kylie is in Spirit Lakes Park and Rec basketball and has practice 2 times a week and games on Saturday's - Thank goodness for friends as I can only go to one of them on Saturday so Kylie goes with Chloe and her family every other Saturday.

Work has been good, not as busy as we like but we seem to be holding our own. We were able to purchase a pick up - 95 GMC in pretty good shape, so no problems hauling the horses or getting hay :) we like that. The car I bought is still broken - we thought we had it fixed but it broke again or just died again on the highway on my way home from work(that was fun). So still waiting to get Dean's little car and once that happens we will be all set with vehicles, keep your fingers crossed that they run for a very long time with no major complications.

The horses are ok. I took their blankets off the other day, which they probably don't need the blankets but it keeps raining, and Ben had lost some weight. He got to be in his own pen now with as much grass hay as he can eat, grain twice a day, and some cool calories. He seems to have already picked up some weight in the first week, so he just was not eating fast enough with the other horses. I would like to get some alfalfa to feed him, but we will see since I do have to get hay soon. If the weather keeps up like this I will have to get shoes on them sooner then last year and get some major riding in this year. I have about 3 people that would like to ride this year and they don't have horses so that will help be my motivation. Plus I want to get Kylie out there a little more too.

That is the story for now I will try and be better about blogging but I don't want to be a cry baby all the time :(. Life is tough but it goes on with or without you and I need to see the positive more. :) :) Have a great day!

MDH Christmas Party

Kylie and I went to the momsdaughtersandhorses.com annual Christmas party yesterday afternoon. It was so fun. Good to see everyone and talk horses, which is always fun. Kylie had fun playing with the girls, decorating cookies, and making Cookies for the horses to eat. The gift exchange was as fun as always - my first gift was a stuffed animal horse in a purse (which got stolen) and then Kylie ended up stealing it back for her :) all in all a good time, here are some pics:

On another note - we went got hay on Saturday - 2 ton yeah now we can wait a couple months to get more. We also delivered some hay for starsandstripesequinerescue.com to some people in need. I can't donate money right now but I can sure donate time to deliver hay! The people were very appreciative and you could tell they love their horses. Now they can keep them and not have them end up in a terrible situation. All in all a pretty good weekend.

What a depressing post that last one was! I do want to say that before we took that road we tried to do all of the right things. We sold our house last spring (at a loss) as we could rent for half of the payment of the house. Our rental is actually nicer then our house was and the horses still have 5 acres to play on. We also sold anything that was paid for except the horse trailer (which is not worth much) and cut back wherever possible. It was a hard decision to make but in the end it came down to our trucks and four wheelers - our pick ups being 61% of our debt. We did not run up a bunch of credit cards - actually last year we paid off an 8000 credit card and I cut it up. All of our others were under 2000. Anyway not that I needed to justify but after reading the post it struck me that there is no mention of how we got there except that Dwane has not found steady work. ON a good note starting January 4 he will be working for Stimson in Plummer (which means staying at his brothers during the week) for 6 to 8 weeks and then hopefully his dump truck will get busy as they did have driver quit and he will be moved into a permanent position at that time. So hopefully next year will look better then this.

As for the ponies they are doing good. Dwane gets to feed 3 times a day since he is home - I told him instead of feeding extra at feeding time give them an afternoon snack since it is so cold out. They are fat and sassy and I am a fair weather horse person so besides being fed - looked at for ouchies - watered they have it pretty easy all winter :).

Upheaval

I haven't felt like posting in a while. Life is kind of in an upheaval - Dwane is not working at all anymore and it has become pretty difficult. Unfortuanately we had to bite the bullet and file bankruptcy - which means we both have to find new vehicles, I have found a car but we still have to find a pick up. I guess the good thing will be (if there is anything good out of this) we will be debt free when it is over. Anyway trying to work through and get back on track but have not been very talkative about life so on to more positive.

The horses are doing good even in the -8 degree weather. Their blankets are keeping them warm and they now have the trees to get out of the wind. But they are going into winter fat and sassy. We have to go get hay this weekend - good thing is it went down to $125 a ton and it is the best grass hay I have ever used. The horses just love it and the guy said he would have hay for most of the winter. He sells it until he gets down to about 10 ton and then saves that for spring to make sure he has enough for his cows then sells his excess. I am hoping next year to get all of our hay from him in the summer. Hopefully Dwane will find a job and then we can buy all of our hay at once like last year. That was nice putting 10 ton of hay up all at once and not worrying about it - this year a ton a month is all I can do. Anyway enjoy your horses they are what brings happiness - the simple things that is what I am going back to.

New Saddle

This is my new saddle! Thanks to my Dad. It has been on lay a way most of the summer - I gave up coffee (well almost) and started taking my usual coffee money to put on it. My Dad sent me money for my Birthday and I told him I was going to put it on my saddle and then I should have it out by Christmas - Two days later I received a check in the mail for the remainder amount owing and a Merry Christmas from my Dad! Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the stirrups shorter.

On another note took another ride at Farragut this weekend hence the above picture :). Last weekend rode around the house, the weekend before we went to the Newman Lake Game Preserve. That was okay but not enough trails to warrant trailering from my house. Kylie went, it was her first ride since the Autumn taking off incident. She did ok but she was whiney from not enough sleep (we picked her up from a sleep over on the way there). She rode Ben and did fine. My friend from work who has not ridden in 15 years rode Autumn and had a blast. I feel like I have to try and ride every weekend as the cold is fast approaching and I don't like to be cold :)