Flying Into 2025!

Happy New Year!

You know those "mystery bundles" Felicity mentioned last time? Those were dresses! Not just any dresses, either, but glamorous, sparkly, red-carpet-worthy gowns!

with the fabulous boas

and sans boas

These were gifts from our aunt, though Mom had significant input on the selections. <3 Our aunt's own American Girl dolls have similar floor-length dresses in different colors/variations. This was inspiration for all of the 18" dolls in our house (there are a lot of us!) to dress up and throw ourselves a New Year's Eve party in the basement. It worked out perfectly this year because the humans were off at a party of their own. Disco ball, great music, sparkling grape juice and snacks, and then changing into pj's to watch Frozen 2 when we were too tired to party anymore... it was quite the night!

Felicity deliberately did not mention this in her last post (she had more than enough to talk about already), but on Christmas Day, a wintery horse bazaar set up shop in that usual grassy expanse a short gallop away from Moorland Stables.

From left to right, we have the Icelandic Horse, the Dartmoor Pony, the Ardennes, and the Norwegian Fjord!

We did not see this coming, but what great choices for a winter bazaar! 

Taking home a Dartmoor would be the most practical, since they can compete in the ponies-only race and championship. They're also the newest pony and the cheapest of the breeds at the bazaar. But we just don't love them, due to the underwhelming coat colors and that lip-curling animation.

Being the newest breed, the Ardennes is the most realistic graphics-wise and can wear most of the new tack. (No leg gear, obviously.) There's nothing exclusive to drafties race-wise, at least not yet, though, and their discount is the least impressive. 

We love Norwegian Fjords, with their stockiness, distinctive manes, and dun coats, and it's great that they can compete in the pony championship despite not technically being ponies. It's just hard for us to look past their older, more clunky animations. 

The Icelandic Horse, though... irresistible. We have been waiting quite some time for them to go on sale, both because they are very cute but also because there is an Icelandics-only race out near New Hillcrest that we've never been able to do. 

They come in quite a few coat colors. Below are the ones we liked enough to screenshot.

flaxen chestnut

silver dapple

black tobiano

grullo

Ýruskjóttur bay dun

flaxen red dun

buckskin calico tobiano

Or, for 200 star coins more, Kátur the magical snowy Icelandic could've been ours. Like Brinicle and the other magical wintery horses, he's only available while the Winter Village is around.

magical coat

non-magical coat: dapple bay pangaré

He is adorable, but is he worth spending 200 star coins more? Umm, probably not, as amusing as it would be to ride him around in magical snowy form in July.

It took us nearly a week of deliberations, but on New Year's Eve, we finally made our selection. 

Ýruskjóttur, which translates to "speckle," is a new coat pattern that recently cropped up on a real-life bay dun Icelandic stallion named Ellert. Efforts are underway to breed for the pattern, which is pretty cool! 

Our speckled beauty is a mare. "Opalowl" looks kind of funny smashed together, like some funky fantasy name, I guess, but we just went for it anyway.  None of the other double "O" names we tried fared any better, and Opalowl goes nicely with Garnetgazer.

Yay, snow in the girl-meets-horse screenshot!

Here they are on their first ride: bareback

and then with tack

We sure think we made the right choice. She's so pretty, and it's really fun that she does the flying pace in between canter and gallop! 

Once she's trained more, she'll be able to do yet another special gait, the tölt! So fancy! We haven't been out to New Hillcrest yet to see what the Icelandics-only race is like, so look for that next time. Until then, enjoy the brand new year! =)