It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well that beautiful, mostly mild, fall we were lavishing in has finally become winter. Yesterday we got dumped with a bunch of snow and lovely wind gusts of up to 60km. Needless to say, we're going to be doing some shoveling today to be able to get out cars out. The sun is out today however and I must say the scene outside is rather breathtaking. I love living in the country! It is so peaceful here and having all this snow only seems to intensify this. Don't get me wrong, I am not a winter person. I don't ski, snowboard, skate or go tobogganing, but I love the beauty of nature.

The peaceful also has something to do with the emptiness of our house. Gillian has gone home for Christmas, but will be returning the beginning of January. Jaimee is away for the weekend, but I think she's begun to realize that training horses is not what she wants to do with her life and will be soon leaving us. So once again, it is just Tim and I. And the "kids" of course, but they are such a joy.

With the beginning of December comes preparations for Christmas, parties, both my brother and I celebrating our birthdays. It's always a busy time of year. We put our tree up yesterday and most of our decorations. Cooper and Duchess are used to this as they have seasoned a few Christmas' now, but Lulu has to check everything out. She was only about a month and a half last Christmas and she and her two siblings of knocking everything off the bottom of the tree and pulling ribbon off of presents. Fortunately this year, while she is still curious, she doesn't feel the need to remove anything.

Our first party of the Christmas is the Wild Rose Arabian Horse Association which is tonight. My parent's have both been members of the club and it's board for as long as I can remember and although I myself haven't been a member since I became an adult, Tim and I both always try to make it. We love the people and even though Tim is not a horse person, we fit right in. But, thanks to the aforementioned snow, we most go and see if we will even be able to get out of our driveway.

It's been awhile....

Okay, so I haven't updated since April and believe me, lots has happened. I'd be blogging for forever if I wanted to catch up so I just going to wing it.

Andrea went home in June and we've missed her a lot. But she's coming back!!! Probably in mid-April, but if this winter stays mild like it did a few years ago, I may try to convince her to come back earlier. We now have two new girls staying with Tim and I. Jaimee and Gillian. Jaimee is 20 and from England. Gillian is a Canadian girl from Nova Scotia. This is definitely a learning experience for Tim and I, especially Tim, sharing a house with a bunch of girls, but we're loving it. I think Lavern's probably finding things interesting as well, working with a group of women. Oh wait, that's life with horses.

We had hoped to have two foals this year. We leased two gorgeous black arabian mares from our friend Kelly. Unfortunately only one of the mares, Dharma was in foal. But what a foal he is! Born in May, we have a bay leopard-spot print colt. I jokingly suggested calling him Greg since his mom is Dharma and it has stuck. His registered name will be Highly Spotted. I'll post some pictures of him in the next couple of days. In the meantime though, I just bought his mom, Dharma. I'm so excited!!! I'll post some pics of her as well.

If the Dress Fits...

When my Mom was in Arizona in February, she was on the lookout for matching dresses. Dog dresses. See, our dogs are full sisters from the same litter. Her dog, Charleigh, is older and a bit bigger than Duchess. She also loves dressing up. We had originally sold her as a puppy to a really sweet couple, but just after Christmas they called and asked if we would be interested in buying her back as they had changes in their life and they needed to sell her. They knew I had lost Duchess and Charleigh's Mom, Isis, barely a week after selling Charleigh and knew that we would love to take her. At the time though, I had three six-week old puppies that I needed to sell first and did not have the money. My Mom came to me and asked if she could buy Charleigh because she wanted a small dog like Duchess and I agreed, knowing I would still get to see her.

I should explain that Isis, their mom, went everywhere and did everything with me. When we lived in Stony Plain, I worked in a senior's home and she came to work with me and visited with my resident's and keep me alerted if anything was going on. She had been mine since she was a week old and we were inseperable. I was devastated by her death, my only consolation being that I had chosen to keep Duchess from her last litter. Anyway, Charleigh and Duchess are similiar in looks and even more similiar in personalities (doganalities, as my Mom calls it). Mom searched high and low for matching dress, but could never find more than one dress in their size. So she picked two of similiar style and here is the end result.

This is Charleigh. She's modeling the rocker chick look. She has a longer body than Duchess, which makes her look like she's wearing a mini-skirt.
This is Duchess, modeling the striped sailor dress. Duchess pretty much hates being dressed up. As a puppy, she loved her sweater. Then one day, that changed. Now, she would literally rather freeze than wear her sweater. As you can see, she doesn't look to impressed, so we don't submit her to this much.
This week I found them a little yellow, belted rain coat from Old Navy. I don't have any pictures of either of them in it yet. It was on sale for super cheap so I bought it for them (okay, technically for us!). They both look super cute in it, but neither of them like it very much.

Playing Catch-up...

I have been really behind on posting and I have a bunch of pictures to prove it. Andrea has been here three weeks tomorrow and is acclimatizing herself fairly well, we celebrated the first birthday of our friend's little girl, Ariane (I hope I'm spelling her name correctly!) and celebrated the life of my Auntie Linda. Why is it that funerals are the truest method of finally getting a family together (or as much together as possible)? I have some wonderful pictures of my Dad with most of his siblings and even got a couple of me with my closest cousins that I grew up with. With the melting of the snow brings out our lovely collection of mud puddles, which makes cleaning off horses to ride an extreme sport. I promise to get some pictures posted over the next couple of days, cooperating internet not withstanding.

The Birthday Celebrations...

So yesterday was a pretty laid back kind of day. Seeing as how Tim's birthday was the middle of the week (and he has those issues with being the center of attention), I didn't plan anything elaborate.

I did plan a birthday dinner with a few friends and family. Tim picked Montana's Cookhouse which has awesome food. Ribs, steak, burgers, salmon; you name it, they've got it. Our party (using the term loosely) consisted of Tim and I, my parent's, Carolyn and Lavern, my brother Gary, Tim's best friend Nigel and of course Andrea who is staying with us. We had a blast! Put Tim and Nigel together and there is always laughter.

Joking around

Tim making it look like he's picking Nigel's nose. Boys will be Boys!

Mom and Dad

Gary

Me

The best part of having your birthday at Montana's is the come out and sing their own version of happy birthday. Of course, this includes you standing up and wearing a huge set of horns which are attached to what looks like an old football helmet. Tim thinks this is hilarious! My Mom however, had talked to our waitress and told her that Andrea was new here from South Africa, so not only did they have a pair of horns for Tim, they brought out a pair for Andrea as well. Poor Andrea, the horns were so heavy Nigel had to prop them up from behind while we took pictures.

This would be us laughing at poor Andrea


Tim and Andrea enjoying their horns

Tim had fun opening presents. He got mostly movies and dress shirts, which has primarily what he wanted. We're going shopping this weekend for a new washer and dryer, which was his big pick.

Tim got a little carried away unwrapping his presents

The additions of the movie collection

Happy Birthday Honey!!!

Twenty-eight years ago today, my wonderful, adorable husband was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho. With three boys already, the youngest being 6, my mother-in-law Caroline, as well as the three previous boys, were hoping for a little girl. Well, fortunately for me, it was another boy. I'm sure Tim is grateful I don't really know any of the details, because I do know he would be mortified if I posted them. Needless to say Timothy Andrus Mackay was born and I am so blessed that he is my husband today and I am grateful to be able to celebrate this special day with him today. I love you honey!!!

New Beginnings...

After considering creating a blog for a long time, I finally took the plunge. I had actually decided last week, but we have satellite internet. This means our internet is either wonderful, or it is non-existent. Well, it has been non-existent since last Wednesday when I decided to start my blog. Obviously though, we finally got our internet back, so here we go. I have had a blast today learning the in's and out's of beginner blogging and I'm sure I will quickly find myself addicted.

For those of you who don't know, my Dad, Lavern, trains horses and my family lives on an acreage outside of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. For the past two years I've worked with my Dad training horses, but I've come to the realization that, while I love horses, training them is not my forte. My parent's have been looking for someone to take over as assistant trainer for awhile now and I am sooooo excited to announce that Andrea Gie is finally here. Andrea is from Cape Town, South Africa and is an accomplished dressage, jumping and eventing rider. Although she is only here for three months, I am beyond excited that she's here. Not only is there someone to take over for me, she is living with Tim and I and it's like having a sister (PS- My brother is eleven years older than I am, so I'm basically an only child!). She arrived last Wednesday evening after 36 hours in-transit, a rescheduled connecting flight due to mechanical problems, arriving 6 hours later then originally expected and her luggage didn't show up until the next day. At least the airline delivered her luggage to our place. Since she's arrived though, everything has gone smoothly and we already love having her. Welcome Andrea!!!

This week is shaping up to be a busy one. Tim's birthday is on Tuesday. We're going out for dinner as a family, but Tim is pretty horrible about dealing with being the center of attention, so we're keeping things fairly low key. Thursday I get to spend the day with a friend I haven't been able to spend any time with in the last couple of months and we both need a girl's day. Friday night our friend's, Geoff and Colleen have invited us over for their daughter Arianne's first birthday. I'm really excited about this, because I love little people birthdays. I realize she's to young to understand what's going on, but I love watching how fascinated they are with everything. And let's face it, babies eating birthday cake is hilarious! On a sad note, my aunt passed away this morning from her battle with lung cancer. Her funeral will be this week, but I'm not sure when. Our prayers and love are with my uncle Ray and cousins, Jennifer and Micheal. Lastly (so far), Tim has decided he wants a new washer and dryer as his birthday present, so we'll probably go shopping for one on Saturday.

With everything going on, I'm sure I'll have no shortage of things to blog.