What's Up Wednesday

Ugh Wednesdays. I might need a big ol' Ben & Jerry's cone as a reward for today.... Anyway, you're not here to listen to me whine about work... Let's look back at the past week!
Life is pretty unexciting during the week with stepmom home and riding Eros those days. But I've spent lots of quality time with Rio which is nice.

He, in turn, has hung out with his neighbor's pups (my friend who rents the apartment next to the barn, her pup and a foster puppy):

Yes! She has a pug too!

Foster puppy Jax, he's available if you live anywhere near here!

Rio and I mostly enjoy groomies and grassy snacks. Or he does, and I'm just there to help. It's nice to hang with him though. We've even had a little bit of sun the last couple days which has been wonderful! (Not so much over the weekend, sadly. Take what we can get though!)

Saturday I flatted Eros outside, and he was wonderful. He likes it out there in the huge ring. But Sunday, we had our first lesson since December(indoors sadly due to rain)! I'm not sure the instructor over there is as well versed as I am in the fine art of rehabbing a horse, but she definitely wanted more out of us than I really thought we were ready for. I let him get pushed a bit on the flat since really that's just fitness, and we're both out of shape. If I wasn't dead, he shouldn't be either since he works more than I do. But I did cut things a little short over fences. I really want to be safe and take things slow with him. I would hate to regress, we've done so well so far. So we jumped maybe 15 jumps, nothing higher than 2' I don't think. He was great! We were in a group, so we jumped a few fences, then watched the other riders, then a few more, etc. I could tell by the end he was tired though as he was being rude about picking up the canter. Once he was aimed at a jump though, he was excited to do his job. Such a good boy! It was so fun to be back at it with him. Also, I was completely sore from head to toe on Monday. I can't imagine what he felt like. Good thing he has Mondays off!

The weekend was somewhat busy outside of horses, too. A friend hosts a Derby party every year, which is always a great time.

Derby attire

And she surprised me with a belated birthday cake! They came out singing and I was looking around to see who's birthday it was... Haha! Oops!

It was funfetti!  Yum!

What a derby though, huh? I've seen a lot of opinions on both sides, but I don't really want to get into it here. I think it was the right call personally. But what do I know? Regardless, we all had a good time!

Sunday after horsing, I headed over to my brother's house to celebrate lots more birthdays! My nieces' birthdays are May 6th and 7th so we celebrated both together. My stepmom is also on the 7th! And I hadn't seen my brothers family nor my dad since my birthday yet, so I got to celebrate some too. It was lovely, except my younger niece did NOT like the candle on her cake...

Kids are so funny, aren't they? Such dramatics. She was happy again once she discovered the chocolate cake inside there. Also, can you guess what Aunty brought them?

Unicorns! And some other stuff. But the unicorns were definitely fan favorites.

Shiny's clothes and things are slowly trickling in, so hopefully she'll be all set when she finally arrives (looks like Saturday!!!). I ordered Rio a new turnout fly sheet along with hers since his is past its prime. I got these cute hunter and tan plaid ones from Big D, but I HATE the closures on them. So I spent last night changing them around a bit. It's not ideal since there's a gap in the middle, but it's a lot better in my opinion. And the sheet actually fits him a bit better this way anyway. So I'll keep it as is unless a problem arises.

That's about it from here really. I shall leave you with some sleeping pugs.

How was your week? Get any riding in? Anything exciting to share?