Fulbrook Silver Moon

This is my new lovely horse, Brook

That was just a test picture, so I could check and see if I'm linking my photos properly to my Flickr account now. Apparently, I was not complying with the user agreement for Flickr, which my husband pointed out to me tonight. I'm supposed to use the actual HTML, not the URL link, even though they put them both as options. (Now it does tell you this at the bottom of the page, but hey!)

Anyway, the cool think is that now if you actually want a copy of the picture or to download it somewhere else, you can click on it, it takes you to my flickr page, and you can download it in full file size which makes it printable! Groovy, huh?

One Year Today.....

Wow!
1 year ago, today, we got the most wonderful puppy in the world. Our sweet, dear little French Fry, Frodo.
He has been outstanding and makes us smile all day long.

Here are a few of his Christmas pictures.....
Frodo's kennel, decorated like Snoopy's in the Peanut's Christmas Special

And to all a good night............

It's Time For Leslie Law!!!!

Ok! It's the time that we've all been waiting for, (well at least Grant Ronan and I.) The Leslie Law Clinic at Falconwood!!

In case you don't know, Leslie Law rides for the Great Britain Eventing team, and was the individual Gold Medal winner in Eventing at the Athens Olympic Games, and he's coming to train ME! Well, me and about 15-20 other people, but anyway....
This will be our 4th year to ride in this clinic out at Falconwood with Leslie. (Ronan's 3rd).

I always come away from it all charged up and confidant, and I just learn so much! It's going to be so groovy! Plus, it's our time to party. Grant always comes with me. We get to see a lot of our friends, and always end up making new ones as well. What could be better? Getting to go to a Gator Farm too!!! Yes, Kelley always comes up with the best stuff! We're all going to an Alligator Farm and show for dinner on Tuesday night.

I'll let you know how it all turns out. Hopefully Ronan will be a good boy...no bucking like 2 years ago...Don't ask....

Go Fetch!

Another ball from planetdog.

Another example of the plethora of photos that I've been taking for my photography class.

The truth is, Frodo can't actually pick up his "fetch ball", but tries to and chases it around the house playing soccer and bouncing it all over the place, so it's almost better! I think it's a little big for his mouth, and it's a bit squishy, so he can't just chomp down on it with his teeth. He loves it anyway....so does the cat.

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day from Frodo!!

Cool depth of field trick...I know.

It's because I'm taking the "Snapshots of a Good Life" photography workshop with Karen Russell over the next 2 months, and we're in week 3 now...aperture and depth of field.

The ball came from Planetdog.com, which is just about the coolest dog toy store ever. They donate part of every purchase to help service dogs, promote recycling, and taking care of the planet. Their mantra is "reduce, reuse, rewoof". This is their small "original orbi" ball. (Orbi is what they call the material that it's made from)


Just one more shot.... and yes, I've got a backlog of things to blog about that are much more important than this. : )

Sing us "Your Song", they're the piano men....

Went to see Elton John and Billy Joel together in concert Thursday night.

Yes! I said TOGETHER!!!! In fact, not just sharing the venue, and night, but performing TOGETHER!!! Like, in a dueling pianos sort of way! Yes. I saw Billy Joel and Sir Elton John sing several of their songs back and forth as duets, and yes, it was just about the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

When the show started they both came out, each sat down at a Grand piano that were facing each other, and Billy Joel stated singing "Your Song", and they just traded verses back and forth, etc. did some harmonizing and both played really cool complimentary piano work at the same time. They sang several songs together like Just the way you are, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, Moving Out.....

Then Billy left, somehow a piano disappeared, Sir Elton's band showed up and he played almost a full show all on his own. I have been trying to see Elton John in concert my whole life, ok well...since I was about 8...but, anyway, and now, I'm a bit older than 8, and it was so worth the wait. He was amaaazing. Could go into so much detail, but hey! That's why I never get my blog posts done and published...so I'm cutting it off.

Then, Billy came back out and did his set....Yes. He did sing Scenes From an Italian Restaraunt, and yes, I did cry because it made me miss home...or more like, it made me miss New Jersey in the late 80s and early 90s and my friends and the Mom and Pop Italian tratorrias that were on every corner (before I even new what "Mom and Pop" meant since almost everything was that way there...not just one big chain after chain like here in TX), and I missed Parkway Ave. and even the Parkway Ave. diner, which I actually used to loathe having to go to since I didn't drink coffee, and they had horrible food, but since they were open 24 hours, and my best friend, Geoffrey, and all of my other friends loved that place, and coffee, I went there a ton once we could drive. (One day I'll do a post just on Billy Joel in my life..... but remember... I do want to actually get something posted here!)

Then, they came back out together and did a lot more songs together. It was just awesome. Really, really Awesome!!!

Something new......and French

Wow....so I know that there are hundreds of things that I have neglected to blog about in the last few months, and I really do mean to at least post some sort of summary, but in the meantime.......

This is Frodo!!!Frodo 9 wks.

New Years Eve 2008
Frodo 9 wks.

Well, we wanted to start the year off right.....so, on New Years Day we got a new Frenchie! (French Bulldog)

The above picture is from new years eve when we went to go look at the puppies. He's 9 weeks old (born on Halloween...isn't that cool?)

I swear, he is the epitome of cuteness. He loves EVERYONE! He is the Don Juan of pupppies. People swoon when they see him. I think he may start to give Ronan (aka Bono) a run for his money. Besides being absolutely adorable, he is fearless, and excited and happy all of the time, unless he's being snuggly, which he is quite good at as well. : ) Oh, and when he wants to play he stands back and does this little hoppy thing over and over, which falls somewhere between an airs above the ground and a buck!



I haven't had a puppy in 10 years, and this is Grant's first puppy ever......

So groovy.

Ophelia thinks that he's just about the greatest thing that's ever happened to her, next to Thomas, of course.

Ophelia and Frodo (9 wks.)

Expeliarmos

Halloween was so groovy.

We actually got to dress up this year. I made us real costumes and everything! Well, I made the robes, which was actually plenty, believe me! Especially since I had to alter the pattern, attach a lining, and I had a horrible time finding enough fabric....Oh! and did I mention that I had to do it all twice? (since there are 2 of us) ...but anyway....

Grant was Harry Potter and I got to be Luna.

Thanks to the wonderful world of ebay (I love you ebay!) we had Hogwarts ties (1 Gryffindor and 1 Ravenclaw), Our house crest patches that I put on the robes, and WANDS! Yes, we had the absolute coolest wands. They were made of resin, and were replicas of the wands used by Harry and Hermione in the movies. (Yeah, no Luna : ( but hey...I thought that I was doing pretty well here.) The wands had a little LED light at the tip that you could turn on and off by holding down a little button, so they actually looked like the wands in the movie when they were lit. We did our best to get the house uniforms right, and basically had the right spirit...Grant's was pretty much perfect, which of course was most important since he was Harry and all. : ) He even let me draw a little lightning bolt scar on his forehead with eyeliner. YES! I actually got to put make up on my husband or as he would say "stuff on his face."




We spent Halloween night at McGonigel's Mucky Duck down in Houston at the Clandestine concert. (Which totally rocked, btw!) So cool. Our friend Leisa, who sells the CDs for the band was the Grim Reaper, with this awesome real scythe (thanks again to the great ebay!) My mother was there too.
2 weeks prior, we went to a party at our friend Audrey's house, so we got to wear our costumes twice! (although for the first party they were still somewhat under construction)

Every place that we went had the grooviest Halloween decorations.

Harry with Grim Reaper Leisa

Who knew that death had an iphone?







Harry and Luna
Who knew that Luna was so short?


Mom, looking particularly witchy that night.






Death vs. The wizards

So there's some groovy pictures for you, and hopefully, I'll be posting the pictures of Ophelia and Thomas' Halloween. : ) Yeah...they're beyond cute.

Getting back to normal.... whatever that is

We've had power for over a week and a half now, but there are still several people that we know without it. Still seeing lots of blue tarps on the roofs of many houses where hurricane Ike took them out.

Went back to work the day after we got back in town since my hospital had power, and man was it crazy, crazy, crazy. I was scheduled to work the next 19 days straight (teach me to take a week off!) but I got one of the other doctors to pick up a shift for me in the middle so that I'd have at least one day off in that stretch. Whew.

I've been riding a few times since we got back...had a great show jumping lesson, and Ronan's feeling good. We've been training so hard the last year, I'm just trying to let him take it easy for a bit this fall. We have a GHCTA show at Pine Hill next weekend on my birthday, and we'll be going out to the Holly Hill USEA Fall horse trials near Shreveport, LA at the end of the month for his first outing at a recognized Training level event. Hermione will be coming along with us to that one. It should be colder out there, so hopefully, she and Ronan can wear their matching rugs.

Grant's birthday was last week (Sept. 23) HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANT!!! We've been out a few times, and my mother made him a Wall-E cake that was really cool. Last night we went out to dinner, and Grant wore his new jeans and his chuck's, so it appears that he's quite happy with his presents. I also got him this DVD set of lighting workshop videos for photography form Strobist that he has really been wanting for a long time. We started watching them the night that I gave them to him, and I quickly fell asleep....oh well. He loves them!













Aside from Grant's birthday, last week was just hard, so I'm hoping that this week will get a bit better.
I'm participating in Ali Edwards "A Week in the Life" challenge that she's posting on her blog, so hopefully, it will give me a bit of a different perspective on my everyday, take lots of pictures, do some reflecting, etc.

Safe, but in the dark

We're safely back in Houston. Our pets are fine, and our house weathered the storm perfectly as far as we can tell. We have (natural) gas and water, but no electricity or phone/dsl service. Cellular service is flaky, but text messages and voicemails do seem to arrive eventually.

Ronan is happy back in his barn. The barn lacks power, but Ronan doesn't really care.