Party Success

We had 36 R's (and 2 dogs)  at and in and around the house on Saturday.  Getting ready for the crowd definitely slowed my blogging down for the week.  The weather was beautiful and everyone enjoyed the view. 

 I don't have the official photo yet with all of us in it but I did run upstairs to snap this one while everyone was gathering.

 The five siblings were all glad to be together again.  Papa R is the oldest at 86.

 A lively gift exchange followed the meal.  Uncle Jerry ended up with the worst of the gag gifts which he somehow forgot to take home and I now have them.  Looks like I have something for next year already.

 But the kids had fun playing with it.

 Good thing we had lights in the barn, because we had some people that wanted to ride.  Hank was a trooper as usual.  He is so calm and steady.

 And Pep, who has only been ridden maybe twice in the last two years, was super horse.  She was the one everyone wanted to ride to be able to trot on.  Hank may be wonderful but his trot is murder.  Pep on the other hand, is a western pleasure champion!  And two people that had had bad experiences in the past on (but mostly because they came off unexpectedly)  got up the courage to ride Pep.

36 people can leave a bit of a mess but I had some good help cleaning up.  After I got the bucket and mop, and showed him how to use it, J mopped the entire kitchen for me.  V and M were a great help too.  M brought his turkey fryer, so we had one fried and one roasted turkey and a ham. Now since everything is already decorated, I can just coast into Christmas.