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?

What's Up Wednesday: The one where I wear many hats. No, literally.

Phew, Wednesday again! Spring is flying by, though no one told mother nature. So freakin' cold here! Despite that, it's been a busy week!
Friday was Cinco de Mayo, which despite my love for Mexican food and Margaritas, I normally do not partake in festivities because, ugh crowded restaurants! But one of my coworkers is leaving for a new job so we decided to have a Cinco de Bye-o celebration for her. I was originally planning on just meeting everyone later for a drink after I rode, but it was pouring buckets outside, so I decided to feed and head right over. Much fun was had, and I was even still home by 11. (I'm so old.)

Unfortunately, my early night was for naught because just as I was about to head to bed, my neighbor heard the familiar screech of tires. Yep. Another car in the woods across the streets.

Fortunately, everyone was ok. But seriously, how does this keep happening?! This is at least the 5th time since I moved here.
Saturday I was supposed to run a 5K. But you know... it was raining when I woke up. So I opted out. #lazyrunner I'm not proud of that. But I'm not really ashamed of it either. Maybe I'll try again soon.
Instead of running, I got to work riding horses once morning chores were done. Jampy was WILD and I wound up having to toss him on the lunge line for a few minutes. Glad I did, there were many antics. Once that was out of his system, he was pretty good, other than spooking at bunnies. Cause you know, killer bunnies in these parts. I planned to take the tall kids out for grass after each of their rides, but I was super lazy about it so I just rode them out to the grass instead of hand grazing. No one seemed to object.

Rio had a lunge since I haven't sat on him in a little bit. He looked great (to the left, to the right... his canter looks great!) I climbed on, but just to walk him out and graze. Rio gets to do whatever Rio wants. And he said he didn't feel like working.

Romes was well behaved too. I really am getting itchy for the vet to get here for him though. I don't have as much love and trust in him, so he actually had a hand graze after we rode.

Next up was a super fun Derby party hosted by Ashley from The Well Dressed Table. I put my money on the underdog Patch, because how could you not? And also on Fast And Accurate who was not so fast. It was super fun, and I enjoyed catching up with some friends over dinner after the race.

This turf table runner covered in ponies and roses was the cutest thing ever!

I wore a hat per the dress code.

Also on Saturday I discovered the snap chat KY Derby filter. You're welcome. Good luck unseeing this:

And then before you knew it, it was Sunday already. I have been behind on absolutely everything since coming back from Florida. And this became a problem this weekend when I was trying to find the time to shop for all the birthdays this weekend! My youngest niece turned 1 on Saturday, the older one turned 4 on Sunday, and my step mom ALSO had a birthday on Sunday. (I'm sure she prefers I not tell you how old she turned.) And I had zero gifts ready to go as of Sunday morning. Thankfully, I know what I'm doing when it comes to shopping.
I stopped first for breakfast because a girl needs her strength for fast paced shopping. Next stop was to the Kate Spade outlet for Step mom. That went a little too quickly because my next stop was to TJ Maxx for the girls, and they didn't open until 11. (Which, by the way, is really inconvenient. I was ready for shopping by 8 am but nothing was open!) Clearly the best option was to stop at the Ralph Lauren outlet. I behaved though, leaving with a dress for my older niece and a charity bracelet ($10) for me. I zipped through TJ Maxx once they were open with some great finds for the girls, and I was home with plenty of time to ride Jamp and Rio. Sorry Romes, you drew the short straw.  Both boys were very good fortunately, because I had no time for naughty ponies (hence Romey not making the cut)! Always time for a selfie with Jamp though. Always.

After ponies I went over to my brother and sister-in-laws to celebrate birthday palooza. My dad and step mom were coming a bit later, so we did present things to start.

I played with all their toys because I'm super mature and grown up. I even tried on Keira's new bike helmet:

It pretty much fit because my head is the size of a pea. Or a 4 year old. Whatever. We played with play doh too. I made a pony:

It's a neon chestnut. Duh.

Cake was super fun, Ellie made a big mess with her smash cake. Anyone else kind of want to just tear into a cake with your bare hands and stuff it in your cake hole? No? Just me? Ok then.
After cake time was home time. I didn't get much of anything done even though I really should have. Such a slacker. One of these days I'll actually unpack and do laundry. This week did not contain that day.

The ponies have been a little up this week with the temperature drop. But no one's died so far, so that's a positive. But my favorite part of the work week so far is my baby plant grew a flower! I grew this thing from a seed which I figured would never grow at all, and it actually grew a pretty flower!

And that's what's up this Wednesday! What's up with you? Do anything fun or exciting over the weekend? Did you wear many hats like I did?