Things I'll Always Remember

About this weekend.

First, the meet-in-the-back grin that ChristinaLMT wore every time a gun was put into her hands. I had a blast watching her be instructed by, well, everyone even remotely qualified to instruct that was present on the range. I also giggled my head off at her bouncing around and trying to write down every gun she shot for her later breakdown of events.

Plus, the ass-grabbery. I mean really. My butt got more attention this weekend than it did in my last relationship. Even GayCynic got in on the butt-grab action, although Alan started it. More shocking, however, was goodbyes yesterday at breakfast.

Labrat and Stingray were saying farewell to myself, as I was heading out for an airport run. I got a hug from Mrs. Get Off My Lawn herself, at which point she looked at her stoic spouse. I smarted off that I wasn't going to hug him, because he might shiv me. The next thing I know I'm being wrapped in a bear hug, lifted off my feet, and shook around, and then, just before he set me on my feet, he reached down and patted my ass. "Just because I don't want to be left out."

Another thing I will never forget is the look on Stingray's face as he came thundering up to the gate whilst riding Rebel. LabRat was on Joan, who had finally given up the stubborn bit, and she was loping along behind him, but what captured my attention as I looked up at the sound of thundering hooves (my first thought being "well shit what spooked the horse and can the person riding stay on until he feels like he's far enough away from said scary object?) was the huge grin plastered across Stingray's face as he galloped along. Then the touch of surprise and worry as Rebel continued to thunder along. I hadn't really expected anyone to kick him up that fast or I'd have made sure to mention that Rebel is extremely seat-cue oriented, so if you're going fast and leaning forward... he's gonna keep going, no matter how hard you pull on his mouth. It's a remnant of his rodeo training, because in steer wrestling it's hard to avoid pulling on the horse's mouth as you go off every time.

They got stopped, and Stingray didn't get launched over the gate and the crowd gathered there, so kudos for him for staying in the saddle. Rebel did make the gate ring a bit with his face, but he's fine, horses have hard heads.

Another horse tale: Breda's grin and giggle when Joan decided to come back to the gate at a lope without Breda's encouragement. She did get to go faster than a trot, and she did very well riding it out without much instruction. The horse was rather proud of herself as well, although we'll be having a couple of discussions about how we're supposed to behave when I've been talking up how sweet and kind we are.

There are so many more moments, but those are some of my favorites. Everyone had a blast (FarmFam included) and that was the goal, so I'd say the weekend was a huge success.

Blogorado (ok, yes, I've given up on that one. AEPilotjim has threatened to trademark the thing in my name, I figure once that happens I have to give up on it) will remain an invitation-only event, if only because our little town can't handle a truly large influx of people, but it looks like we're doing it again next year.

Probably a little earlier in the year, though. We lucked out this year on the weather for the weekend, but if we move it up to the late August/early September range we can pretty well count on it being Hot and Dry.

The FarmFam will start discussing actual plans once we recover from the awesome.