Easter, Huskies, and Equine #3!

 Happy Easter from the four of us!

It was in the lower 40's as we were taking this picture on Saturday morning. Brr!

Back in the warmth of Mom's bedroom with some bunny stuffies

There were no flowers to pose by in the yard yet, but it is finally starting to feel more like spring around here. No severe spring storms have impacted us, fortunately, though Mom did bring us down to basement one day last week before leaving for work when our area was deemed "high risk."

This little plant that lives in Mom's home office (aka the laundry room) has bloomed, though! 

We don't know what kind of plant it is and had no idea it would get flowers, so this was a fun Easter surprise!

Another totally unexpected fun surprise: Mom sort-of tied for first place in her extended family's March Madness basketball pool this year! Go UConn Huskies!

There were 38 brackets total (2 max per person.) Mom didn't expend much effort here - didn't even name the brackets or watch any games - so it was quite entertaining that she and her aunt's greyhound, Hawk, came out on top.

Hawk and Mom had the exact same number of points at the end - the first time this has happened in our family. Technically, due to tie-breaking rules, Hawk wins because his predicted championship game score was closer, but as you can see, the site showed both as co-winners.

Mom may not get the trophy (Hoops the Beanie Baby bear), but she sure came close! We think that another Beanie Baby husky is in order to commemorate the occasion. He would join the other husky (2011, UConn) and the ram (2017, UNC) from when Mom won solo previously, ha ha. 

And now on to some Star Stable news. 

Tigertin seemed to reach level 15 way faster than Frostflight did - no doubt because we have unlocked so many more daily training options. Since we didn't really like having to leave Frostflight all by himself in the stable, we were really eager to pick out equine #3.

The Baroque-specific competition was apparently a limited-time thing. Its current short-term replacement is an endurance race limited to Akhal Tekes, Arabians, and Marwaris. 

We seriously considered buying an Appaloosa or a Paint to be equine #3: even rode out to Starshine Ranch and risked the game booting us. (It didn't this time, thank goodness!)

two frontrunner Appaloosas

two frontrunner Paints

We couldn't come to an agreement, though, so Lily suggested we purchase an on-sale desert breed instead. Akhal Tekes and Marwaris are cool, but our clear favorite of the 3 is the elegant Arabian. So, off we traveled to Goldspur Farm. 

All of the Arabians on Star Stable are very good looking, which made our decision really tough! 

The horse Mom rode the most back when she was taking lessons was a fleabitten gray Arabian, so this one had major sentimental appeal. The real-life one had no facial markings and was not nearly so fleabitten, however.

The fanciest is definitely the flaxen chestnut rabicano, though the light gray also stands out from a crowd. The solid black makes us think fondly of The Black Stallion. However, we decided against all 4 of the ones already mentioned because we've seen multiples of them being ridden around. We also decided against bay because there's a bay Pintabian NPC that gets ridden around Moorland Stables constantly.

That left the light flaxen chestnut, the dapple gray, and the liver chestnut. Light flaxen chestnut is lovely but reminds us so much of Barbie's typical mounts that we just couldn't commit. We love dapple grays, but it didn't make much sense to us for this one to have blue eyes.

So, liver chestnut won!

As you may have noticed from the above screenshots, we have kept the alliteration trend alive and named him Desertdash.

He's been our trusty steed ever since, including for the limited-time endurance race on South Hoof beach:

...and at the Equestrian Festival that is currently going on.

Coincidentally, a full-priced chestnut Arabian is for sale at the Moorland hub of the festival. It's quite nice too, but we still prefer Desertdash's chocolatey hue and more extensive markings. <3

The plan now, which I'm hoping to get my sisters to stick to, is to keep it to three equines until at least May. Once Desertdash is fully trained, we will alternate riding each of the three, and change up our tack and clothing as we feel so inspired. We can do it, guys!