Happy New Year!

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"HAa-ppy New Year" ~ I can never say that without thinking of the stop motion "Frosty the Snowman" saying that when he wakes up with the top hat on. But it's a happy memory and so I guess that's all good.

And we have had a good start to 2009.

The holidays were good here, if busy. But I think that's the nature of the holidays and it was especially welcome since we had a rough year with some of the family stuff.


But while so much of the US is iced in, in Texas this time of year can be the time to be out and doing.

Beri and I went to our first Brass Tacks match yesterday, hosted by our local CMSA Club, Texas Smokin Guns. It was a beautiful 84 degrees with a perfect light breeze for most of the day. The wind picked up toward the end of the day and made the last couple of rounds more challenging, but that's an inherent part of the sport.

I'd given Beri, and myself, time off since our last match last fall. She did a 50 at the Armadillo endurance ride with Courtney and only some light trail riding and pony rides since, but we haven't been shooting so I wasn't sure how we'd do. Overall, I was moderately pleased with my shooting and extremely pleased with Beri. The break did her good and she seemed ready to get back in the game.

We did 'good enough' in our class (3 of 6!) and are slowly moving up in the overall standings, which is pretty exciting since we spent so much of last year just learning how to use our thumb.

- no. really. One of the hardest things for me to learn to do has been to cock the gun fast enough on the run down. Even now, I'll miss the fourth balloon if I let her run home. But yesterday, she rated for me better than she has before and that's part of all the elements of the sport starting to be more automatic instead of me having to over-think each step.

We only got to do two endurance rides last year (although my horses each did a ride without me!) and we're excited to have more endurance local-to-us on the schedule - so we're looking at an intense (FUN!) year, and yesterday gave us a great start.