Janurary 1st - 1:35am

Happy New Year! Spent the evening/night with Rachel, Martin and Martin's family to celebrate the new year. Definitely a very fun time. Dinner was great, the people were awesome and the celebration fantastic. At midnight tons of people in the city started setting off fireworks. From the docks, the tops of buildings, in the street. Everywhere. Across from Martin's mom's apartment is a resturant calles Kansas. They have an outdoor patio where they were playing music. We all went out on the balconey, watched the fireworks and danced along with the music. Just a great time. I would have loved to be with my family but this borrowed one was pretty great as well.
Plus, in addition to the celebration, it was a better riding day as well. Justinian was good as always. Got some pretty good work out of Puccini with Martin's guidance as well. Hoping I can continue what I was doing today with the same success on my own. That's my sign that I have actually learned something. Doing, checking and correcting without someone verbally telling me. Just the horse's reaction and my feel to go by.
After that I was on Oregon. Had a little bit of trouble with him at first but got it all sorted out with Martin's help. And by the end of the ride, he was actually pretty fantastic. Forward and responsive with clean and easy up/down transitions. Defintely a good feeling there. He's a horse that challenges my riding a bit but I think that's mostly a four year old green stallion thing. He's really a pretty neat horse. Cor Lit followed him for a quick hack out as the rain started to move in. Jour basically did the same with some serious cracking down on his down transitions. He's nice and easy off the leg but doesn't always have the cleanest down transitions. By the end he was quite nice though. When I got off of him the wind was howling and the storm clouds were rolling in. Absolutely poured for about five minutes. Then stopped. By late afternoon, I think the whole ring was dry again. How's that for summer heat. It put a stop to riding for the day though. So spent the afternoon helping the guys. Sweeping, grooming, tail braiding, organizing the blanket shelves and the like. Then off the the new years party! All in all a good day here at the farm!

Views from the apartment and fireworks!