Christmas Cheer

Smokey posing in our living room

It rained a lot so I can have  fire without the worry of starting a wild fire.

 

The house is finished and Dasha andJonathan moved in on November 22nd

The living room before

Looking from the kitchen to the living room

The kitchen

New bathroom cabinets and sink

The finished living room

Finished kitchen

One of the bedrooms finished

 

The new paint on the front of the house

The hall bathroom before

Jonathan and Dasha get the key to their new house today.

 Just a short walk from our house, we could not be more pleased.  Lots of work to do in bringing it up to date, both Doug and I will be helping. It will be interesting to see how long it will take before J and D can move from our house to their new house.

Since I came back from New York

 I am thinking about my twin in England who lost her partner of 35 years and his funeral is next week. He passed away suddenly at age 72 from a heart attack while shearing his sheep. 

Dasha and Jonathan are looking at houses for sale, but there are so few on the market in their price range. So more time spent living with us is in order, We had plumbing problems with Jonathan's son causing his toilet in our front bedroom to overflow several times.( he is staying with us for the summer) The final time we had a lake of water a quarter of the way into the bedroom which is carpeted. It took two days with fans and heat to dry out and now of course smells. A new toilet was purchased, one that advertises that it can flush golf balls.

Dasha had the courage to get on her horse and ride him. Doug had been riding him for her for the past two years. So we are very pleased that she is enthusiastic and going out almost every evening to ride after work. She herself began riding as a beginner with us just before she got Tandy her horse, and was riding my usual ride Coco all this time.

I went to New York to visit my son and family

My son Eddy and dog Hayan meet me at JFK

Eddy with daughter Audrey and wife Steph  we went out to a park

Me next to a river at Hawley Pennsylvania.

An old farm in New York

My grand daughter and the family dog

Doug meets me at Burbank airport

 

My garden blooming at the end of May.

 

Meet Up in Santa Barbara

My daughter Heather and her husband Ryan are on vacation in Avila Beach  at a "time share" and we agreed to meet in Santa Barbara about an equal distance from where they are staying and where we live. So we met them at the harbor and ate lunch took pictures and then drove to the shopping district and had '"turkish coffee" which tasted appalling but gave us a lot of energy.

In the harbor Santa Barbara, California

Drinking the turkish coffee

Paddling in the ocean in the harbor

Me and Heather in front of one of the big buildings in Santa Barbara

Dasha andJonathan go to England and Kazacstan

Jon and Dasha loading their huge suitcases into the car

Posing for me just before leaving, Doug drove them to the airport LAX

 My step son and wife head off for an adventure. They will be meeting at least one of my family in England and possibly staying for a night or more. And also meeting up with Dasha's family in Kazacstan. Dasha is from Russia but can not go there, so her family is crossing the border to meet Jonathan for the first time.

After two weeks we rode at the new place

 I also rode Coco with Doug on Knight and we had a great time. We rode in between all the pens and then in one of the arenas. There is a different atmosphere at the new place, in that we are around more people. Doug loves this as he is the only male rider !!

Settling in and the first tulip.

Our seating area.

My back garden and the tulip middle left.

We have been at the new place for five days now and we are getting into a daily routine. The horses are in turnout in the pictures. We have made a seating area facing our pens under a shade tree. We made the last trip to the old place to get out stuff yesterday. We still have some things to do to get fully settled, such as organize our tack shed and then getting the horses used to the new sights and sounds and then finally riding them. We have met some awesome new friends as well.
 

The horses are moved to the new place.

The horse hauler was on time and all loaded no problem, which was amazing ! Then it took just a few minutes to get to the new place.  Pesky  freaked out a bit because he was the last to be unloaded out of the four. But all was Ok. They are settling in well and there is so much going on at the new place that I think they are enjoying the stimulus. Today all went into turnout and had to go past the "unfamiliar animals " Llamas an emu for example. We are looking forward to getting back into a routine and riding them. 

Coco does not know yet that they are all leaving to go to a new place.

The horse trailer for four

the new pens

Turnout Tandy and Pesky, Dougs grandson looking around

Turnout Coco and Knight

We went on a mini vacation

 We went to Ridgecrest and  Trona situated in the desert