Nala's Halloween Feast

Nala had a great Halloween. 

(Not because of her koala costume. She hated it.)

Was it because she ate...

A. this pumpkin:

B. this pan of pumpkin seeds

C. this Halloween-themed dessert:

D. this jack-o-lantern shaped pizza:

It wasn't A., the pumpkin. It went on to become this:

She didn't technically eat B., the pan of pumpkin seeds, either, but she did quietly jump up on the table and eat some raw pumpkin seeds earlier in the week when Mom left the room for 30 seconds.

Nala consumed an entire chocolate bunny once, and around a dozen unbaked chocolate chip cookies on another occasion. She came through both with minimal side effects. Still, it's probably fortunate for her that she also did not eat C., the ghosts in the graveyard dessert. (The dirt contains chocolate pudding and crumbled oreos, and the Milano cookie tombstones have a layer of chocolate inside.) This went straight into the fridge when it was completed.

Unfortunately for the hungry humans, Nala ate D., their supper. There were actually 2 jack-o-lantern pizzas. Mom took the photo you see above of one of them, then shut the box and left the boxes stacked on the kitchen counter. She went upstairs to tell Grandma the pizza had arrived, then got sidetracked helping her try to change a lightbulb. (I know, I know, but in their defense, it was one of those long, fluorescent tube type ones in the ceiling. To say it did not go smoothly is a sad understatement.)

Even sadder, when Mom realized it was way too quiet downstairs and rushed down, she found Nala eating one of the pizzas off the kitchen floor - only about half of it remained, and it was face down with its cheese stuck to the linoleum. Nala had pulled the box off the counter and gotten the pizza out of the box somehow with minimal box damage. Mom found the second box similarly intact in the next room, empty but for the jalapeno peppers.

Needless to say, it was not the best Halloween night for Mom. 

It wasn't the greatest night for us either. We wanted to play HI3, but the graphics were lagging. Not the issue we've had before where there's a big delay every time you try to bring up a menu, place a horse, click on something, etc., but where every movement we tried to make (rotating the camera, moving our avatar) was slow, jerky, and headache-inducing. It was doing it in a less-extreme fashion on Friday but really got bad last night. No idea what it was about, but it was still doing it somewhat even when we switched to "lowest quality" graphics, which, we discovered, is aptly named. 

This morning, November 1, wasn't so great either. 

=(

At least HI3 seems to be behaving itself better today, so hopefully we won't regret that we just stocked up on more mobia earlier in the week. Thanks to the issues, we did not find any more wilds in October to be tempted by, so the same 4 are still vying for permanent spots in the herd. We are fairly confident that Snappy and Wayfair (now Thriller) are staying put, but we still aren't sure about Zane or Shamrock... Lily says it's a sign neither should stay. The rest of us are not convinced.

Ugh, I'm sorry this post is kind of a downer so far. Let's end with something happier. Not sure how long this has been around, but we realized just this week that it is possible not only to see what your horse was like as a 4-year-old, but also what it was like at birth! This has a very practical purpose for all the HI3 breeders out there, I'm sure, but it's also really cute seeing what mature equines looked like as teeny newborn foals!

For example, here are our first 4 as foals:

Starfleet

Gryffindor

Cloudburst:

Windfall

I love how they aren't just cookie cutter, how they all still have their unique characteristics, only in awkward foal form. =)

Here's what our most draft-like horses looked like as foals:

Teatime

Blitzen

Clorox

Torridon was a dark grullo before he grayed out!

Zonko always had his jumbo-sized hooves.

Rock that tail, Showtunes!

Wow, Maral! You were even more deer-like as a foal!

Here's Shamrock. Her body shape has not changed much. XD

Another Birthday Boy

Our adventuring out from our ranch has led to more epic discoveries.

These cairns are pretty cool!

Yet another epic beaver dam not damming anything. (And sorry, Eagle. I was too lazy to switch to the kayak.) 

Our first October wild of note is this minimal tobiano pony, Snappy. We actually found her on a mail run, not while exploring.

Her genetic stat total isn't so great. She also has an unusually small head. (Maybe that's why intelligence is her lowest stat?)

What makes her stand out: her winning personality! It's the most right-sided of any wild we've ever caught (519), and bravery (the trait that's most important to us to be high) is highest!

Even though Snappy is on the taller end for a pony, Pepsi looks awkward riding her.

Hmm, it's not that bad, right?

On her left side, the one you can't see in any of the above shots, her spots have cute freckles inside. =)

Our adventuring turned quite chilly for a while as we continued to head south: lots of ice and snow. Pepsi and Taurus found our first ice castle epic:

And Pepsi and Nessie found our first snowman epic:

When I heard other players calling them creepy, I was puzzled. How can a snowman be creepy? Once I saw one, however, I understood. XD

I think they're even creepier by night. 

We found out that pink isn't limited to black sands water features on HI3. From time to time we've come upon random - but pretty - pink ice features. 

Our more skittish horses are not big fans of ice. Nessie, Clorox, and Solveig all eventually became too scared to keep going!

Many wild equines call the ice and snow biomes home, though. The ice-dwellers tend to be quite small and sometimes hide behind icy ridges.

Snowy regions are so hilly that even though snowy wilds tend to be huge, the often also hide well. Prime example: this cluster of 6 were hidden on the far side of a hill. 

One of the horses from the cluster was this 20.2-hand, very handsome giant:

How appropriate that we found this guy to the south of our ranch!

He stops, starts, jumps, and turns pretty well for such a big guy!

Hee hee, Pepsi looks so tiny!

...and the big guy paces!

One of the other horses from the cluster is this long-legged bay mare:

She looks sort of like a curly-coated, less awkward Topi. 

Her genetic stat total is quite good...

...and while nowhere near as speedy as Topi, her performance metrics aren't bad.

She has an adorable roman nose going on too:

The parade of cool horses continued in the wonder shrooms. Again. (Maybe we need to stay away from the shrooms for awhile for the sake of our horse slots.) 

She makes a color as basic as chestnut about as interesting as possible, thanks to the luxurious hair and flashy white markings.

Is it that her back is disproportionately short, or that her legs are disproportionately long? Either way, she has a perpetually foal-ish body type. Her high genetic stat total caught our attention too, of course.

The metrics aren't bad, but her personality is far from ideal. 

She looks fancy here:

And awkward here:

Hmm, we're not really sure how we feel about this one. Bethany's saying it could be bad luck not to keep a horse named Shamrock... but nothing happened when we sold our first one named Shamrock back in May...

The adventuring continued, and all that snow and ice eventually gave way to fjord highlands. Here are Pepsi and Torridon admiring the view from a rocky ledge that reminded me of Pride Rock from Lion King.

Snappy and I found our first highland epic, a "giants causeway," on my birthday!

I was not expecting to find anything more exciting than this on October 15. It would be pretty hard to top last year, when I found my beloved Cloudburst, after all. While the last horse I caught that night does not "top" Cloudburst, I think finding him was every bit as lucky!

Don't let the rando name and that annoying ear worm of a jingle fool you!

Don't let his un-stellar genetic stat total fool you either!

He's one of the fastest wilds we've ever lassoed, and he's very brave. Combine that with his gorgeous coloring and markings, his awesome mane, and his impressive size, and you've got quite a horse!

I think he's fantastic, and he'd definitely going to be staying as one of my horses! <3