What's Up Wednesday

So much is up this Wednesday! And I'm happily catching you up from sunny Florida where temps are in the 70's. It was 15 when I left CT. Definitely picked a good week to travel south!
So first things first, I wanted to share this year's holiday card and a couple of outtakes too.

Yep, we all had Chanukah outfits, even the horses!

Pony Chanukah outfits made by Hopeful Equestrian, you can find her on Etsy!

Don't tell Rio I posted this. He'd be so embarrassed.

A rare moment of Jamposaur with his head down

Usually it's like this. This might actually be my favorite photo of us ever.

The pugs and I had perfectly matched outfits. Expect to see them again for years to come.

Ok, back to the past week... Friday my mom, brother, his family, and I finally got around to having our Chanukah party. It was a really fun evening complete with homemade AMAZING latkes and lots of presents.

My mom got Amazon Prime earlier this year, and she's really getting pretty good with it. She got me a Rebecca Ray bracelet on there! (But I forgot to take a picture, sorry. I'm sure it will be on Thursday's Threads soon.)
My brother and his family were at Disney a few weeks ago, and I had told my nieces to make sure they say hi to Eeyore for me if they saw him. So they brought me back this adorable stuffy:

Saturday morning was kind of busy. The morning started with freezing rain, and literally the entire place was coated in ice. The ponies were only allowed out in the covered walkouts since they didn't yet have winter shoes on. Don't need the old men slipping and getting hurt. I had a 9 am appointment at the car dealer to finally get my dangerous air bag replaced. I was kind of nervous since I wasn't sure what the roads would be like, but by the time I had to leave it was regular rain and the roads were just wet.
My car dealer is just down the road from a mall and several shopping plazas. I was mostly done with shopping, but did have to pick up something for my little brother at EMS (his original gift never shipped). So I stopped over there and at the 5 Below store before heading home. The farrier arrived just after I did, so that was great timing. The boys are now ready for winter!

Jamp's not fond of the burning hoof smell

Saturday evening was Christmas Eve Eve, which is Festivus (for the rest of us). If you're not a fan of Seinfeld, you should be, so go google Festivus and watch the episode... Go ahead. I'll wait.


Anyway, for the last several years, my family and my brother's wife's family all gather together for a Festivus meal of Chinese Food. My dad usually brings the food so there's enough to feed a family of 100. There were 17 of us. I'm still full.

Christmas eve day was a really nice one. All the ice and snow were gone, it was in the 40's and I had nothing planned except for meeting up with my mom in the evening. So you know what I decided to do??? Yep, you're right! I rode my horses! I threw Jampy on the lunge line quick first, since other than for posing for photos the weekend before, they haven't been ridden in almost three weeks. He was surprisingly not wild so I climbed aboard. Of course we did have a few of these moments:

But hey, it IS Jamp we're talking about here. He also had moments like this, so it was still a nice ride:

Rio was a little sassy, but honestly he felt fantastic. I've been a little worried about him as he's dropping A LOT (read: most) of his hay, but after riding him, I think he's still doing ok. He's eating plenty of chopped hay and all of his grain, so I'm going to calm down about the dropped hay. My vet was satisfied with his weight and overall health too. I mean look at him:

What a man! I might be biased (ok I am VERY biased) but is he not the most handsome 21 and a half year old in all the land?
Actual Christmas Eve turned out to be a little weird. My mom and I do Santa stockings for each other, so I went over there to do that. Mom supplied the bagels and lox (we had to Jew up the occasion a little afterall) and we had fun opening our stockings together. But when we were done, mom looked out the window and saw 4 cop cars stopped in front of the neighbor's house. These neighbors are like family to us, so we were really worried. Mom called over, and they said someone had fallen over at their son's apartment. (Son is a grown man in his 40's, recently divorced so he's back living in the apartment over their garage.) Mom and I walked over just to make sure our neighbors were ok. Really sad turn of events, the guy who fell wound up passing away. He was a friend of the son. Really tragic, especially so on Christmas Eve.
I headed home soon after all that. The boys needed their stockings filled and it was starting to snow. I hate snow, but I know that people like a white Christmas so as my gift to everyone, I didn't complain about it. You're welcome!
As in most years past, Santa overestimated the size the horse's stockings.

Probably needless to say, most of that wound up not in their stockings.

Christmas morning came early, but not as early as it probably did for those of you with human kids. It was the weirdest morning. When my alarm went off at 6:45 it was raining torrentially. Like the kind of rain where you think the sky is falling. So I decided to hold off on going out to feed for a little bit and went back to sleep. When I woke up again at 7:15 it was snowing just as hard as it had been raining. Such weird weather. I got some really pretty photos though!

Believe it or not, there is no filter on this

For Christmas, it seems Santa brought Jampy a pet rat. Or I think so anyway. When I walked in the barn there was a hay trail from Jamp's stall door to the tack room, and underneath the one tack trunk that sits up high. I wasn't emotionally prepared to deal with another rodent, so I have not yet actually looked under that trunk... It can have the week, but when I get back there will be traps out, and his days are numbered. I just CAN'T with rats. CAN NOT. So gross.
Anyway, once the tall kids were fed and I swept up after the new pet rat, I went back in the house to help the pugs with their stockings.

They got some snacks from Snaks 5th Avenchew, a few toys, and some bully sticks wrapped in yaki sticks. They were pretty excited. By the time we finished with their stockings, the storm was wrapping up and I headed out to do chores. It was chilly out, but was a pretty nice day. The horses were happy to be out in the snow.

They each had a lovely grooming session and then I went out to clean up some snow. I wanted to make sure to get the snow off the lower part of the driveway by the manure bin. It was really easy to shovel luckily.

all clean!

Next up was prepping the horses's supplements for while I am gone. They both have Smartpaks but are also on a few other things that I either can't get from Smartpak or I can get much cheaper elsewhere. I like to bag up all the dry supplements so it's easier for the horse sitter. And then the next thing I knew, I was almost late for dinner. Where does the time go?!
Since my first step mom, and also my current one, was/is Catholic, I've always spent Christmas with my dad. And we do our present exchanges on Christmas. We did dinner first, and it was amazing. Sorry I have no photos, but my dad made a roast, and my step mom made scalloped potatoes, asparagus, green beans, corn bread, and a jello mold. And homemade cheesecake. Seriously, if i haven't doubled in size after this weekend it will be a miracle.
I ran home in between dinner and presents to feed the animals. So nice that it was fairly warm and the roads were in good shape so I wasn't gone for more than an hour. Everyone picked out the perfect things for each other, and I was pretty excited about this:

That my friends, is a DYSON! A cordless one in fact. I'm curious to see if it will work on the rubber barn floor... But I guess really it's for the house. Also, how old am I that I'm excited about a vacuum?

Not as excited as Juno was for her Santa toy though

December 26th was mostly reserved for packing. But first I did the barn chores and groomed the ponies. Then I brought the short kids to the vet for a nail trimming:

don't let those cute faces fool you, it takes multiple people to trim their nails.

It took me the whole rest of the day to pack because I'm really the worst at it. But it got done. Eventually.
Today was a tie up the loose ends at home and travel day. And now here I am in sunny Florida!

The weirdest thing happened boarding the plane though. I was chatting with my farrier who was on the same flight. We were in the same row but opposite sides of the plane. So we get to our row and there's a lady in my seat. With gloves on and a lot of tissues in her lap. Um. Ew? And then a flight attendant says the woman has a nosebleed so no one else can sit in that row. Fair enough, I don't want any blood born pathogens thank you very much! But I also had no idea where to go as I was clogging up the aisle. The flight attendant had me wait in the seat ahead of mine, but then that person showed up, so i was seatless again. It wasn't until everyone was boarded that they found me a seat. ALL the way in the back of the plane. Sheesh. I don't mind being back there except that when it's time to deplane you're the last one off. Boo. Also we were delayed almost an hour because they had to fill out paperwork for the bleeding woman. But all's well that ends well because we made it safely and in time to have dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant. I'm excited to see Badger in the morning! You know what that means? I'll have a Thursday's Threads riding outfit to share!
How was your week? Do you celebrate Christmas? What did you do? Did you get or give any great gifts?