Housewarming!

Carla and her friend, Florence (Flo) arrived at 2am, having driven cross country  over the last several days! It's great to have them here...Carla will stay with us for about 6 weeks before heading to Colorado for her internship. Flo can only stay until Sunday, as she has to get back to work in Ithaca on Monday. They were in on the planning that Grayson masterminded to throw us a wonderful housewarming party today. They got us to take them to a nearby bakery for coffee to get us out of the house so Grayson could set up. When we got back home, there were a bunch of cars in the driveway and the sign I had made to welcome Carla and Flo had been changed to say, "Welcome Home, Mom and Chris". Out on the deck, the grill was stoked, there was a massive spread of food, beer, sodas and tequila, and the following people were here to help us celebrate our big move:

Kaiya, Emily, Sean, Ethan, Natalie, Viktor, Bridgette, Brandon, Carla, Flo, Bridgette.

It was SO nice to share our new home with everyone. There was music playing, beer pong, dogs romping in the yard and great conversation. It was really, really awesome and we are so grateful to Grayson for making it happen. Thank you, Gray!

Tonight, we went to the beach near Grayson's house to watch the fireworks. They are not sanctioned, but everyone just brought their own, rather impressive fireworks and set them off all around us. It was intense, because some of them were so close to us that we were actually nervous about them hitting us. But, it was really fun to watch!

Quincy went out for a few hours in the gelding pasture again today. Yesterday, he did well for the time that I was supervising, but after I left, he must have gotten into a battle, because he has a pretty good bite on his back with very clear teeth marks. No deeply broken skin, thank goodness, but the hair is stripped off and it's quite swollen. I feel so bad for him, but it's normal for horses to go through this as they work out the herd dynamics with a new horse. He is playing it pretty smart...keeping out of the corners and being on the alert all the time for attacks. But, he must have let his guard down and he got hurt. He was very happy to see me and to come inside with me. Today was better, but when I returned to him, I found him waaaaaayyyyyyy back in the furthest away part of the pasture, all by himself. I really hope he will make some friends soon, or at least one good buddy, so he won't be so lonely.

I rode him yesterday, and he was great. We went on the trail that goes all the way around the olive grove and the apple orchard, so we saw the entire property. It's very nice....except for the ground squirrel holes that you have to watch out for. They are such a problem that the ranch owners have a guy who comes to shoot them three days a week, and he averages something like 50 per day! I'm not a fan of that method of control, but I also don't want my horse falling into a hole or a tunnel and hurting himself!

Chris is getting pretty comfy here...he knows his way around the neighborhood quite well from the 8 weeks he spent out here before. He is sleeping well in our awesome bed, except for the night that I leaped out of bed at 3am because a massive spider crawled (and by that I mean ran really fast)  up my back! Then, I made him tear the bed apart looking for the damn thing, but we never did find it. Anyway, I read up on it and learned that peppermint oil is a good spider repellent, so we bought some pure oil at Whole Foods, and I soaked about 50 cotton balls with it and put them all over the house, and especially around the bed. I also bought Dr. Bronner's soap...peppermint scented, and washed with a TON of it so now I smell like a candy cane. But I don't care, as long as it keeps the spiders off me!

We miss everyone! Please email or call us...we'd love to hear from you all!