Phoenixfeather

Back on Tuesday, 7/7, we said our fond farewells to Summer Daze!

After doing all of the dailies on Panda, it was finally time to take home our Jorvik Mountain Horse from the bazaar barge! Here he is!

We wanted to incorporate something to do with birds in his name, since his special animation involves a cardinal feather. Hence, Phoenixfeather!

Clara was still wearing her wild "tourist shirt" from the festival when she met him, but Phoenix was not fazed. He may look fancy, but he's a pretty happy-go-lucky, chill dude.

The first ride:

Side note: the Mustang in the background looks so disappointed to have been passed over. Sorry buddy! 

The Chincoteague looks like he couldn't care less. XD

Instead of trotting, Jorvik Mountain Horses do a smooth "trail walk."

Obviously, he'll be spend most of his time under saddle at a gallop, and he looks amazing doing so!

The first sparkle!

I could moon over Phoenix way longer - I already love him to bits - but let's move on to what came immediately after Summer Daze, another week of a Style Riders competition. This time around, the daily themes were beach-related.

Here are our entries:

We went with a black and pale iridescent theme - probably the only time Clara has ever worn this shirt, skirt, and shoes. XD Opal was the horsey model because she looked great in the tack and because she's from Iceland, a country that experiences Midnight Sun.

Our inspiration for this one: sprinklers and the rainbows you might see in the water droplets on a sunny summer day. Snowy is modeling for obvious reasons.

We're aware crabs are technically crustaceans, not fish, but they are ocean-dwellers too, and we figured everybody else would be hauling out their manta rays... 

Since this was the final day we could participate, we couldn't resist using Phoenixfeather.

Alas, we missed the remaining days of Style Riders (subthemes Tourist in Fort Pinta and Underwater Royalty) because we went camping while the humans went on vacation. Fortunately, we managed to do well enough during the three days we did participate that we earned both the participation ribbon and - more importantly - the tie-dyed t-shirt. It goes great with some of our saddle pads - you'll see it in some of the screenshots below.

In our "breather week" after Style Riders but before Camp Western returns, we're getting another bazaar!

From left to right, we have the Marwari on sale for 475 star coins, the Percheron for 425 star coins, the Ardennes for 495 star coins, and the Welsh Pony for 400 star coins.

We are already the proud owners of a sleepy Ardennes (Sandman) and a sassy Welsh Pony (Seaglass), but our herd does not yet include a Marwari or Percheron. I don't remember ever seeing the Marwari in a bazaar before. They're normally hidden away out in New Hillcrest with some of the other not-very-popular early generation 3 horse breeds. 

Marwaris have the awkwardly-moving, more cartoony feel we've come to expect with the early generation 3 horses. However, in my opinion, they somehow manage to rock it in ways most of the others do not. The curled ears, the goofy facial expressions, the floaty mane chunks, the cartoony roundness... it all just comes together in a happy, endearing way. Here are the 8 interesting color varieties:

extreme sabino (caught with its eyes shut, oops) and black

badger-faced sooty palomino and liver chestnut

badger-faced bright bay and oddly-marked bay pinto

cremello (beautifully posed here!) and light gray

As tempting as both the Marwari and the proud, muscular Percheron are, we're thinking we will resist and instead eventually bring home the magical Marwari and Percheron pair from Hollow Woods instead. Both are always 450 star coins. (We're not sure why the Hollow Woods horses are so much cheaper than their non-magic counterparts, but we are certainly not complaining. Maybe because it takes so much effort to unlock them?)

Here they are: Birkir and Hanami. We finally unlocked them this weekend just so we could check out their non-magic coats.

Birkir becomes a black sabino: not really what I was expecting, but handsome all the same.

Hanami becomes a dun. We don't love that Hanami's eyes remain pink, but the subtle wood-grain texture in the coat is so cool!

We also unlocked this pair of magical runestone Clydesales this weekend - someday we may take home one of them too.

Unlocking these guys set Clara over the edge with her experience points. She's finally made it to level 24!

Whoo hoo!

Before I go, I'll also share some photos from Mom's vacation in South Haven, MI. (We didn't take any photos while we were camping, as we like to disconnect from tech as much as possible. We had a great time too... until we were driven inside by extremely thick wildfire smoke.)

A couple of photos from different sunset pier walks:

They thought the setting sun was going to be shrouded in thick clouds on this day, but it emerged just as it neared the horizon.

Tiki boat sun block

a pastel afterglow

Mom's cozy bed in the chilly basement. She had Ruby and Hoops for company. 

(This was Mom's final hurrah with Hoops before he finally got passed off to the 2026 winner of the family's NCAA March Madness bracket pool. The winner is a first cousin once removed's fiancé, so not someone Mom sees often.)

The fam's morning walk destination: a shady bridge over a small, lazy creek, where there is the daily stick race. Participants pick a stick during the walk, then drop them in tandem on one side of the bridge. It's a quick rush to the other side to see whose stick will emerge first from under the bridge. Yes, they are easily amused.

No records set with jigsaw puzzles put together this year, I don't think, but it was still impressive:

the eyes on these puppies... XD

musical group puns

(Imagine Dragons, Arctic Monkeys, Rolling Stones, etc.)

100-piece cereal collection. They came in a box that looked like a variety pack of single-serve cereal boxes.

General consensus: the Cheerios was the hardest

The lack of a comma bothered Mom's cousin, but other than that, it was quite a fun puzzle. This was one of the places Mom and fam visited two summers ago.

Asian rainforest. Very challenging due to all the leaves and the circular border.

This one got done way more quickly!

Mom had to leave for home early, while this final puzzle (another challenging one) was still about 2/3 complete.  It got finished before the rest of the fam left, though, and our grandma had the photo to prove it. =)

Mom got a chance to visit a few of her favorite shops in downtown South Haven, including two toy shops. It made us all very happy that the Audubon bird plushies are still for sale in one of them.

We absolutely love this bird tree! We sure could use one (or two) of these to display our collection.

The one toy shop that offers Breyer horses had a very small, picked-over display. The stuffed animals (other than the little birds tucked away in a back room) were quite picked over as well in both shops. However, as you will see below, Mom did not leave either shop empty-handed. In the first one, she found the little snowy owl with a scarf. He had probably been there since winter and seemed so lonely. In the second shop, the horse was sitting decoratively on a shelf about eye-level with Mom. Again, all alone, looking so hopeful. She was so cute and so reasonably-priced that Mom could not resist her either. 

Here they are along with Mom's other souvenirs: a clearance t-shirt and a couple of rocks from a beach north of South Haven

We will never cease to be amazed by the great beauty and variety of water-tumbled rocks!

The little snowy owl is living his best life now with Myth and Merlin, the two owl buddies she bought last year, probably at the same shop. They have lots of Audubon bird company as well. <3