Twas the week before Christmas...

And of course I'm not nearly done shopping/ making gifts... but that's on par for me. Any-who  back to the land of horses...

Monday I got to the barn a bit earlier than norm and hacked with Karley. I was happy for a little extra sun as it was none to warm (yes we are cold weather wimps in Cali). Louie was a sweaty mess under his double blanket so I cleaned him up a bit then went to lunge him. He was a slug, its like he and Henry were trying to see who could look less inspired lunging across the arena from each other. I gave up and hopped on. Overall  he was his awesome self. He was a little looky at the "trouble" end of the arena, but I kept him busy and he got over the crazy horse in the round pen. I tried to work on keeping us both in form, he tends to bulge when I am too focused on myself, and I am a constantly fighting my heels, shoulders, seat... you get the point. I had a few moments where I finally felt settled, my heels were down (without my toes out like a duck), I had a decent paced posting trot going, I was in rhythm, my calves were on, knees weren't pinched, it felt awesome.   At that point I think there were 5 of us all doing our own thing in the arena so I tried to just do alternating size circles and as usual not flopping all over on downwards transitions. Then Louie cooled off while Karley and I chatted and got his grain and tucked in for the night. He got clipped by J on Tuesday, pics to come :)

Tuesday was our normal lesson, although everyone seems to be arriving earlier and earlier, which luckily I had the mind to do as well. I ended up on Buster again, J was supposed to ride Magic, and I must say I didn't feel like riding the newly clipped Louie given our recent history of odd distractions during lessons. So, Buster it was. With lots of motivation we went through our paces in the chilly air, even some no stirrup work (ugh). L went first for jumping, always an impressive sight, then Karley. Henry was a brat, but she held strong and schooled him well, I can't believe how far they have come. Buster and I trotted then cantered back and forth over an X, I worked on not sitting back to early, head up, heels down... all the usual faults. Buster worked on not falling asleep, easy peasy work that it was.  I really wanted to do the X to the panel, but it was quite freezing by this point and I didn't want my trainer to turn into a popsicle  not to mention my toes were quite numb.

Not sure exactly when I will ride next, going out of town and with family and the like arriving in town for the holidays. Hopefully I can sneak in a ride Sun or Monday.