Colorado Horses

      I am somewhat of a super slacker these days when it comes to my blog. But, in my defense, I am incredibly busy. Not that that is anything new for me but the blog has had to take a back seat quite a lot lately. It has happened before and it will happen again. Even though I do have other cool photos from Colorado I want to wrap up my trip with photos of the horses I got to meet. When I told people I was going to Colorado I said I was going out to judge a horse show and to meet my friends' horses. It was in my plan and I am glad it was in my friends' plans as well!

    First up on horse-meeting day was Olive, Jennifer Buxton's horse. Like many people, I am sure, I feel like I have known Olive since Jennifer got her. It has always been so great to hear about things with Olive and especially to hear about the progress Jennifer has made with her. So when Jennifer said she was going to treat me like an absolute beginner when it came to riding Olive I was fine with that. I have ridden quite a lot, off and on, for years, but I would consider myself a beginner in most ways. And I don't want to mess up someone's hard work with their horse! I also have ridden a lot of trail horses that are not very sensitive to anything.

     Clearly, I was just really happy to be on a horse. It is a fairly rare occurrence these days, since I am so busy. I am always really happy when anyone shares their horse with me!

photo by Jennifer Buxton

     Travis also loves horses, and rode for several years himself, but he stayed on the ground and hung out this time. 

Photo by Jennifer Buxton

     We took a lovely group photo and I am completely ready to go traveling all over to meet up with more model horse friends and take lots of group photos. And do lots of model horse group dinners. 

Travis and Anne Field, Cheryl Ellison, Tiffany Purdy, Jennifer Buxton, Christina Harrington and Fabian Rodriguez

      

     After we hung out with Olive for a while we went to lunch. This was a fun time as well. I needed to kill about 20 minutes afterwards, before heading out to meet Cisco, so I went to the tack store next to the bar where we had lunch. 

    I already had no more room in my luggage, but tack stores are fun. I decided I didn't need anything so we were going to leave, and I figured I should check out the clearance racks on the porch. Because of course things that are on clearance will more easily fit in my full luggage. Well, I found a slinky dress on the rack. Black velvet leopard print, spaghetti straps and a high thigh slit. And I laughed and laughed. Of course I had to buy it! I wore it out dancing and told everyone I bought it at a tack store in Colorado. It's a gorgeous dress and makes for a really good story as well. 

     After buying a sexy dress at a tack store, Travis and I headed out to meet Cisco. He is even cuter in person!

     We immediately made friends. I would have taken him home if he would have fit in my luggage and if I could have gotten away with it. 

I basically stole Cisco while I was there. 

     I had been very excited, though also a bit nervous, about trying side saddle. It was absolutely terrifying for a couple of minutes until I realized I just needed to work with Cisco and relax. Some parts were still awkward, like putting pressure on him with my right leg, but the sway became very relaxing. Side saddle is surprisingly comfortable when you calm down and realize you are not going to fall off. 

Christina had a turn trying side saddle as well. 

     Then I stole Cisco again and had to work really hard to try to get him to go at a faster walk. I had forgotten how hard it is to walk quickly in a sand arena. And I had forgotten that I can't breathe in Colorado! My quick paced walk around the arena had me very out of breath and questioning if I was that out of shape (turns out I am not that out of shape, I just can't breathe in Colorado).

     I absolutely love this photo of us!

     Travis and I went to the Denver museum of Science and Nature on our last day, where I did get some photos, but I just fought with blogger and Chrome for several days to add one more photo to this blog. There will be no more photos in here. We also went out to a fantastic Mexican restaurant with Fabian where my very limited Spanish at the door was enough to fool the waitress into thinking I spoke Spanish. I had to tell her I don't have very much Spanish (yet!) but it gives me hope that I am actually making progress with all of those lessons. 

    To sum up, I had a really fantastic trip to Colorado. I wish it had been longer, but that need to make money forced me to come back to Massachusetts and go to work. But I really do want to travel more and hang out with model horse people. And I definitely will be spending more time in Colorado. 

Candyland Wrap Up

     I have been back from Colorado for 2 weeks and I still haven't managed to finish all of the posts about it. I have one more about Candyland today and then one more post about Colorado and then I am finished. I just seem to have no time or energy these days. Again. But here we go, some more stuff about Candyland. 

     The hall was ginormous and I got so many steps in! I had a table set up right near the performance rings but the snack table was aaaaaaaaall the way at the other end of the hall. So I got a lot of steps in. The really excellent part of all of that space was no one was at all crowded. Which I think is a first for almost any show I have ever attended. 

There were super cute Candyland friendship bracelets in the gift boxes and with the door prizes. 

    I made a unicorn friend. And then I gave the unicorn some chocolate coins and lured it home with me. (Not really, Heather let me have it because I made friends with it and wouldn't leave it alone). 

     This little horse was super awesome and reminded me of one of the color combinations I have recently had on my hair. And a galaxy. So extra awesome. 

    I really loved this dragon-horse and had a fun time playing with some camera settings on my phone. 

    More cool stuff in the fantasy class, which may have been just about the only thing I saw other than performance. 

    I believe there was a foal that matched this mare, but this one was my favorite. It's such a cool piece!

Regan OKeefe won reserve champ in performance, 

and Jennifer Buxton won champ in performance. 

    It was a really excellent show, ran well, and it was fun to judge. I have missed showing a tiny bit, but not enough to pull out all of my stuff and start showing again. Judging has been an excellent way to get back into live show atmosphere. And maybe soon I might decide to show again. Maybe. 

     I am working on getting ready for my Black Friday semi-live sale, which will be on Friday, November 29th at 2:00 EST on my Facebook studio page. More information to come!

Details Matter

     As I have said many times, the first thing I look for in a performance entry is safety. If it’s safe the next thing I want to know is if it’s clean. By that I mean, is it correct, is everything where it’s supposed to be. The next thing I look for is details. I love miniatures. I love details in entries. Whether it’s a cool accessory you don’t completely need, super detailed documentation, or miniatures, I love it all. Sometimes details can make or break an entry. The more details you add, the more things you add to potentially screw up an entry. For me, I think the risk is worth it. So now for a mostly wordless Wednesday, let’s all enjoy a whole bunch of detail shots from Candyland Live. All of these lovely details are from entries belonging to Jennifer Buxton. Enjoy!

 

Everybody Needs Dolls

  The last class I want to share photos of is Josie and The Pussycats. Jennifer Buxton pulled out an epic performance entry. Performance showing a lot of fun, but to do it well takes a lot of work. Jennifer was very focused while she was setting up her entry. 

    I'm not sure if Angelo was helping or just there for moral support, but either is a nice option. Performance showing can be really tricky at times. Especially when you decide to use about 25 dolls in one class!

   It was not as epic as her PINK! entry from 2019 as far as horses, but it had a lot of dolls. Everybody needs dolls. This entry drew in the crowd. 

    Once the paparazzi showed up I knew I needed to just stand back and wait for a bit. It did offer a pretty great photo op for the blog though. 

     Jennifer clearly had the same idea!

The entry started out with a fairly simple piece of documentation. Just one cat in that picture.

From the front of the entry you can't really see all that is going on here. 

But when you start to look at the details...

There is a lot going on here!

I love this little cat on the fence post. 

So many cats!

    Jennifer likes to add a lot of details to her entry, which I absolutely love. Every time I placed one of her entries first I felt that people were thinking that I was just automatically placing her entries first because we are friends. Which is not the case. I spent a lot of time trying to find flaws in her entries. But Jennifer is not a lazy performance shower and her entries are not only packed with details but they are very clean. 

    Have you ever tried to make a whole bunch of dolls stand up?  Even more basic, have you ever tried to make ONE doll stand up without a stand? It's not super simple. It gets a lot harder when there are a whole lot of dolls. And when they are holding things or interacting with other props. 

     This was an incredibly detailed, very clean entry, and was a lot of fun to look at. Thank you to everyone who brought out performance entries to judge. Thank you to Heather for inviting me to come out and judge. And thank you so much Jennifer, for giving me so many cool details to look at. More to come!