Thanksgiving Weekend and Other Updates

I know I'm like a week late on my Thanksgiving post, but oh well.  It was wonderful to be off from Pitt for a couple of days.  Wednesday we got out early (at 3:00) and I didn't have to be at Wal-Mart till 6:00 so I got to do a bit of shopping in Cranberry.  Wal-Mart was busy, but that's good, makes the night go quickly.  Thursday I really lucked out and I had the day off from Wal-Mart!  Woohoo!  Headed out to the barn in the morning.  Katie was there but no Bonnie, which I knew about.  She had to go in to work early so she wasn't planning on being in the barn.  Katie and I cleaned some stalls and then she tacked up Mystic and I got Miss ready.  Katie just did some walk/trot flat work with the poopalossa.  And I was planning to only do some walking with Miss.  Well Miss had some other ideas, and she just popped into this nice forward trot.  So I let her go and we trotted a couple of circles.  I only let her do a couple as she's really not fit at all, and even then I had to fight her to get her back to the walk.  She has certainly been feeling good. 

Thursday evening it was down to Aunt Sandy's for dinner (of course!)  As usual the meal was fantastic.  Aunt Sandy always outdoes herself with these family dinners.  It was great to be able to spend the evening with my family.  Friday morning I slept in a bit and then Mom and I headed out for a little shopping.  We didn't go out until about 10:00 so we missed most of the craziness, although it was still hard to find a parking spot at the mall.  We did manage to get a good start on our shopping though, so I'd say the day was a success.  Then I had to head into Wal-Mart at 6:00.  And actually, it was really pretty dead.  I guess it was super busy in the morning until about 8:00 or so.  And then it was pretty much a normal day, only it seemed really slow because there were so many of us working.  At one point there was like 7 cashiers in a row standing out at the end of our aisles. 

Saturday I headed back out to the barn for lesson day.  Got some stalls done first thing.  And I had a great ride on Miss.  She was just feeling so good.  A couple of times she broke into a canter, which I quickly stopped, she doesn't need to be doing that yet.  But she was feeling good.  And she's looking good too.  She's really filling out and thanks to the riding, she's starting to build up her muscle again.  Her hindquarters are filling out and she's really picked up along her back, for the longest time you could really see her spine and she had no muscle or anything there.  She was putting on weight, but it was all in the belly and she wasn't able to carry it right.  Not anymore.  She's really is looking like a healthy horse again.  Yay!  My baby girl's doing better!

Unfortunately I had to go back to work at Pitt on Monday, but I did have Friday off.  Even if it was to go for more testing, at least I didn't have to go to work.  First thing Friday morning I headed over to Dr. Connelly's office to swallow a small camera pill. 

And then I had to wear this lovely belt and recorder all day.

So that pretty much meant I couldn't go out to the barn at all.  And to make it even worse I couldn't drink anything for 2 hours and no food for 4 hours.  Which at this point I hadn't eaten anything since Wednesday night.  So I was starving.  I headed home and snoozed on the couch for a couple of hours.  Then I headed out to Monaca for a bit.  Did some shopping and got a really cute pair of shoes, among other things. 

After that I stopped down to visit with Aunt Sandy and Uncle Ralph.  they were taking down all the Thanksgiving decorations so I helped with that.  Then we headed out to the back porch and just procrastinated.  Uncle Ralph really didn't want to start bring the Christmas decorations down from the third floor.  I had to go back over to Dr. Connelly's office at the end of the day to turn in the belt and recorder.  And then I went back to Aunt Sandy's for some of Uncle Ralph's yummy cheesy ham casserole.  Yum!  And then we did the usual, watch NCIS on USA then the Hallmark Channel.  Good evening.

Saturday I headed out to the barn for some pony time.  I got X's stall cleaned and then I tacked up Miss Moose for another walking ride.  And she was trying to canter again.  Silly mare!  I think it's time to start doing some trot work with her and maybe add some cavellettis.  But she really needs her feet trimmed before I start increasing her work too much.  So I'll discuss with Bonnie next week and see what she thinks. 

In other news, the Northeast Ohio Mini Trials Series has posted their 2011 schedule.  So now it's time to start thinking about where to take my little painted dressage pony this summer.  Titus will be doing some walk/trot dressage this summer at the very least, maybe even some crossrail mini trials.  Yay, I can't wait!  I think I heard that Tammy will be sending him back to us over Christmas sometime.  So hopefully I will get some more riding time on him.