Golden Christmas and White Boxing Day

Check it out! One of my clones was on the cover of an American Girl catalog this holiday season!

Apparently Mom's not the only one who knows I can pull off powder pink!

(me)

And now, as promised, here's the latest from our HI2 adventures.

Just like on last Christmas, we fluted a +4/6 Highland. Julie and Jolly had the honor this year. Maybe HI2 knows one of the classic Christmasy albums in our house is Scottish Christmas?

She's the same color as Julie's Highland, Wintergreen.

Since she wasn't a keeper and since it was Christmas, we decided to check out HI2's available horses in the auctions, livery, and ranch stores. No auction or livery horses tempted us, nor did I find my dream horse (a perlino or light gray Florida Cracker mare). When we got to the H's in the ranch stores, however, we finally got excited.

This awesome Halflinger was for sale! We have been hoping to find one for years, and there she was, just waiting for us! <3 We didn't have to look at any more horses. We knew she was the one!

Here is Pepsi taking her for her first ride, a circuit around Glacier Isle. =)

Ooh, such a classy avatar!

The story doesn't end there. The day after Christmas, we were still hanging out on the Glacier island complex. Felicity and Gromit used the flute out on the far end of Snowflake Isle. Guess who showed up?

a white gray stallion!

Does this sound familiar? It sure did to us!

December 31, 2014: we caught Jolly the +5/6 Russian Heavy Draft stallion

December 15, 2016: we fluted Tchaikovsky the +5/6 Orlov Trotter stallion

December 2018's model is also - you guessed it - a +5/6er!

Thanks, HI2, for keeping the December snowy stallion tradition alive!

I know we already have two wonderful Mongolian mares:

Poinsettia

Burgundy

...but I think this guy is too cute to pass up, especially since we've never had a horse from Snowflake Isle or a horse with the "strong, silent" personality in the herd before. <3 

Doesn't it just figure that as soon as we broke down and bought a horse, we'd flute a nice one the next day? XD Oh well, I'm just happy we're ending 2018 on a happy note!

Another Christmas Recap

Christmas has already come and gone. Before long we will have to say goodbye to our weirdly balmy December too. We did have snow early on in the Christmas season, though, and here is proof:

Mom drives by this giant teddy twice a day. He also lights up at night. =)

Ugh, 2019's stretch of 3+ months of winter is practically staring us in the face. I wish we could hibernate like bears. Or fly south like geese. But no, we're stuck here, waiting for the lake effect snow machine to switch back on for the long haul. Because we all know it will. It's only a matter of time.

My sisters were actually disappointed when they woke up to a green Christmas. Disappointed, I tell you! I'll remind them of that come April when we're still getting dumped on. They don't actually have anything to complain about, because it snowed prettily for several hours on Christmas: fat, Christmasy, snow globe type snowflakes. The ground was just too thawed out for them to stick.

We all had a great Christmas, even though the ground was not white, and even though Mom didn't receive a single doll-related gift this year. That's not to say anyone suffered from a lack of gifts. They were absolutely crammed around the tree!

There were quite a few contenders for prettiest present, but this little silver beauty definitely ranks high:

Nala had fun popping everybody's packing pillows for them. She also received a couple of new toys, including this jumbo tennis ball:

So far she's not very interested in it, so it has a chance of staying nice for awhile, unlike normal-sized tennis balls. 

For the record, here is Mom's huge haul:

Yes, I know it looks more like gifts for an animal-obsessed 7-year-old than non-child Mom, but she is perfectly fine with that. XD I won't discuss everything in the photo, as that would take forever, but I will highlight a few. 

Mom got fun new cases for Milton (her laptop) and Twinkle (her Kindle): rainbow birds and Starry Night, respectively. She was really pleased because her old cases were literally falling apart. 

The mugs, which came in fancy matching boxes, feature woodland animals (left) and owls (right) wearing hats made from various nuts and flowers. They were instant hits.

Mom saw the original paintings of the 26 animals featured in the A-Z animal book during this year's ArtPrize - they were displayed in the window of a building downtown. Her favorite is the narwhal.  

Ricky the FurReal pup was a total surprise. Mom did not even know he existed. He hasn't been turned on yet because batteries were not included and are an uncommon size (typical, right?), but even stationary, he is really cute.

All the Spirit-themed horses were also total surprises. Mom had never even seen the Netflix show, but since Christmas she has made a point of changing that. (Halfway through season 1! Yay!)
The horses and riders are roughly the same scale as the horses she collects, Grand Champions and Breyer classics. The riders actually fit classic-sized horses better than most, which is great! (So often they are too big!)

Whew, that's all I have time for today. We do have big HI2 news too, but I will let one of my sisters tackle that. Stay tuned!

Black Forest Draft Horse

The newest horse breed to join HI2 is the Black Forest Draft Horse! It's another one of those rare breeds we didn't know much about, so I think it's fantastic that HI2 added them and piqued our interest.

The Black Forest is a forested mountainous region in southwestern Germany. It makes me think of fairy tales and black forest cake.

Yum

But it is also home to the Black Forest Draft Horse, a breed that dates back to the Middle Ages (wow!) and was originally used to haul felled logs from the forest.

These horses are always chestnuts with lighter manes and tails, and HI2's have wonderfully abundant manes. HI2's come in 10 different colors, including 3 shades of silver. I have no idea if Black Forests can be silver in real life or not, just that silver is different genetically from flaxen chestnut. But at any rate, the silver versions of these guys on HI2 have darker tails than manes, while the flaxens have matching manes and tails.

Here are a few examples from the BBB:

red silver

black silver

flaxen chestnut

sandy chestnut

black chestnut (my personal favorite! <3)

Also note that HI2's Black Forests always have major facial markings: either blaze without snip, blaze with big snip, and blaze with white muzzle. These horses all remind me of black forest cake, especially the dark ones. If we ever are lucky enough to own one of them, it will probably end up with a dessert-themed name. 

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be adding a Black Forest to the herd anytime soon. The way things have been going, I doubt we'll even catch any more herd-worthy horses of any breed this year. We've fluted many attractive horses lately, but sadly they've all had unimpressive stats. Let's take a look at a few of them anyway.

Felicity and Aspen fluted this beautiful Kinsky mare with a bonus Spanish moon moth:

Anya and Lily fluted this snow-speckled Sugarbush stallion:

Bethany and Della fluted this dramatically dappled Appendix:

And Tinsel and I fluted this interesting splashed white Spotted Draft whose avatar is decidedly unspotted.

Our favorite of all is this cool Spanish Mustang fluted by Felicity and Herbie:

He is definitely going to our Millennium Fields once we think up a fitting name and give him some spiffy rump art. =^)

Birthday Contest Winners

We've finally gotten around to announcing and awarding the winners of our birthday flute contest!

Category 1:
Fluted wild that looks the most like the horse of the day on Mom's calendar

The winner is Julie's Datong!

Julie got lucky with a birthday calendar page full of horses. The 2 chestnuts with large white facial markings in the background sealed the win for the Datong. Her blaze also looks quite similar to the blaze of the appaloosa in the foreground.

The competition in this category was not exactly fierce. None of the rest of us fluted wilds remotely the same color as our calendar page horses.

Category 2:
Fluted wild with the prettiest/handsomest profile artwork

The winner is my (Lily's) Groningen!

This one was difficult to agree on, since all 4 of us fluted quite attractive horses. Felicity and I even fluted the same breed this year. My stallion's gorgeous roaning pattern and his cool diagonal leg markings ended up giving him the edge over the others. 

Felicity's handsome dapple grey Groningen was a close second.

Category 3:
Fluted wild with the coolest avatar

The winner is Felicity's Groningen!

HI2 avatars' crater rumps are always cool, and this contrast of dark on light is especially pleasing. 

Julie's Datong, with her subtle dapples and not-so subtle dark legs, came in 2nd:

My Groningen, who is handsome but looks more like a light buckskin than a roan, took 3rd:

And Bethany's not-so-exciting but still pretty blood bay Furioso took 4th.

Category 4:
Fluted wild with the best personality

We didn't get any clear winning personalities in this one, like "Best Friend" or "Class Clown." Instead, we got 2 generic "Uniques," a "Competitive," and a "Know-It-All." By adding up personality stats, Felicity's Groningen has the highest total with +32. He also has the least number of personality traits on the left side of the personality scale.

So, even though know-it-alls are at times annoying, we'll give the prize to him.

Category 5:
Fluted wild with the highest sum of stats for its breed

The winner is Bethany's Furioso!

She is the only horse that had a positive sum of stats for her breed: +5. 

My Groningen came in 2nd with -12.

Felicity's Groningen came in 3rd with -45.

Julie's Datong came in 4th with an impressively poor -82.

Category 6:
Fluted wild with the highest total sum of stats

Again, Bethany's Furioso wins!

Her stat total is 2280!

My Groningen is 2nd again with 2188 total stats.

Julie's Datong is 3rd with with 2168 total stats.

Felicity's Groningen is 4th with 2154 total stats.

That means 2 new companions for Felicity and Bethany, and 1 new companion for Julie and me! Here are the ones we picked:

Felicity's picks:

Moonlight the premium Egyptian Mau, who completes Galileo's companion collection

Silver the premium silver husky for Gromit

Bethany's picks:

Icy the grey overo foal for Lysithea

Razzle the premium Potoo for Quasar

Julie's pick:

Chasm the premium black Falabella for Ravine

My pick:

Peachy the premium lamb for Yetta. 

I tried various foals with her but liked the lamb more. =)

Yay for new companions! <3