Nationals

has been amazing. and freezing. and late...or early. This is going to be a short post because 1: my fingers are to cold to type and 2: I have to go harness up a trainer's horse and run it up to the arena after this class.
The day we got here, Tuesday, it was pretty hot..107. Yesterday was decent, I think in the 90s. Today, on the other hand, the high was 60, and I don't think it ever hit 50. And it rained, a really cold, unpleasant rain! Dandy has been a complete angel! She travels so well on the floor in the back seat, asleep.

We left AZ at 3am Saturday and got to OK around 1am. Stayed with some great friends for 2 nights in Ringwood and left for Tulsa. Our trailer only made it to Sulphur, so we had to go a total of 6 hours out of our way and got to Tulsa pretty late. The show has been absolutely awesome and a TON of horses, I think numbers are pushing 2000. There has been up to 60 horses (driving) per class.

Lisa and I got to work a little tonight for a trainer....grooming, harnessing, running horses back and forth between the barns and arena, etc. Its kept us warm :} I think it is 1 am here right now and there's still at least 3 classes left. This 'expo square' is HUGE! There's at least 4 "barns" which are like giant covered arenas with rows and rows of stalls and the one immense indoor air conditioned\heated arena. There is a country pleasure class in that has I think 52 horses in it. Typical lunch time is 4pm and dinner (last night at least) was 3am! Quite the hours!

Shooting/Butchering

Warning...really long post with a large amount of pictures!!!! And a little graphic (see picture below) ☺

Looks simply delicious, doesn't it??

OK, now I'm getting ahead of myself...that part comes later

Shooting: (this morning at 6:30am with the R's)

My padre ...........

..........Me momma ☺......

.....Lisa....needs a bit of a stabalizer at first ☺

....Anner.......

........Me.........

.........David........

...........Noah+/

Oh man, I just REALLY had to laugh....my fingers slipped up on the keys and put a plus and a dash after Noah's name....makes him look like a champion Arabian. When Arabs win something big (Nationals, Regionals, Del Mar, Canadian Nationals, etc) they get so many pluses or dashes after there names i.e. Bask++/ or LLC Royal Flush+/ (he is Kelli's boy, Dallas, who won a Triple Crown in Hack, meaning he won Hack at Canadian Nationals, Del Mar, and Region 7.)

Anyways, unneccessary lesson on Arabian horses....it just looked really really funny to me.

OK...Butchering

the Doomed

the Dying

the Despairing ☺the Distressedthe Dirty

the....uhhh....Disassembled!! OK anyways... My 1st ~clean~ one

Disecting

Ohhh...uhhh...did I just do that?? My first one..I look a little nervous/or grossed out. Considering I was flinging bloody water into my mouth,,,I think I had a decent reason to be :) It was super duper fun!!!!!! Took some getting used to but by the 3rd of 13....I think I was doin all right ☺

She looks proud of her chicken!!! *not sure why..he doesn't look very good...* well, THAT depends on who's perspective!! WOW clean tables!!! Don't smell too closely though...

"chesterton," sick, & sick of it!

I HATE being sick! I got knocked out on Thurs and had a fever coming along nicely by Fri. And CAN'T stop this utterly absurd cough! But, considering that I just polished off a bowl of ice cream, a cookie, and a Sonic slushy...not too bad off. Haha, no, I really am feeling pretty wretched but sugar (in mass quantity) is good for sick people...right?? At this moment, I am perfectly in love with this jolly old HP Touchpad..provides splendid entertainment. But it insists upon not uploading pictures. So I'm kinda mad at it.

Nationals update: now we are taking Dandy as a guard dog and we are delivering one of the Lab pups in Albuquerque (sp?) New Mexico to its new mommy. Next on to Tulsa, where we are now picking up at least 5 horses and some Nationals t-shirts for people here who requested them. We made shirts for us that have our horses and "I AM Ranch" on them ;)

There is supposed to be almost TWO THOUSAND horses there!! Up to 60 entries in the hunter jumper classes!

Oh dear, now I am listening to Lisa in the kitchen bewailing the loss of her beloved "Chesterton," her bug-friend. I was calling him Billy Bob, but she said he looked intelligent and dubbed him Chesterton =O He really did look intelligent...he could fly, had red tips on his wings, and an alligator's face. Pretty cool little guy.

No, incase you are wondering by now, we actually aren't mental, as astonishing as the fact may seem ;-)
Just two tired teenage girls....playing with a bug...and rambling about centaurs....and cyclopes....yeah, we need to go to bed!! <3