HORSES!!!

We did it!  We have Stormur and Gaefa with us!  I don't think it's even set in yet that we have two new fuzzy members of our family.  I can't wait to get to know them more and see them every time I come home.

We started off getting Gaefa outside of Calgary.  Calgary seemed like a cool city that I would've liked to explore a bit, but there was no way I was stopping when we were so close to her.

We met Danielle at her farm on Sunday morning.  She took us back to see Gaefa, and she was even prettier than her pictures :)  She is a very feminine, refined-looking mare but she is also very strong.  I took a lesson on her that day to start to learn about the tolt (the special gait that Icelandics have).  I feel like a total horse beginner again!  So much is different about the cues, your seat, body position etc that I was almost starting over.  I didn't even know how to tack up with Icelandic tack!  But Gaefa, the sweet girl that she is, was very patient with me.  She is very well trained and a joy to ride.  Rich fell in love with her instantly- once he looked into her beautiful brown eyes he was a goner :)

We stayed overnight at Danielle's, who VERY kindly let us plug in to an outlet on the house to run our heater.  The next morning I had another lesson.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  Will need a lot more practice though.  When we loaded Gaefa into the trailer and pulled out, it was almost surreal.  We were driving down the highway and I kept telling myself, omg there's a HORSE back there!  And she's OURS!  It was a little intimidating, knowing that I was totally responsible for taking care of her.  Even when I had Max, I wasn't on my own because he was boarded.  But for Gaefa, if I don't feed her, brush her, clean her stall, etc, it won't get done!  Funny how I no longer bat an eye at having the same responsibilities for four dogs, yet I find myself worrying about messing this up.

So what to do?  Why, get another one, of course!  After some delays with frustrating trailer brake issues and some bad weather moving in we finally made it to Verena's outside of Edmonton, where we would get Stormy.  She and Danielle were both getting really worried about us because they knew we should've gotten in hours ago.  Since our phones aren't working in Canada, we had no way of contacting them to let them know we were okay.  But we made it, safe and sound.

It was late so all we were going to do for the night was get Gaefa off of the trailer and settled in.  She got turned out in a paddock adjoining the one Stormy was in, so they could start getting acquainted over the fence.  Whether they got along was one of my biggest worries, since we didn't really have a good Plan B for how to handle that.  But when they met each other and started sniffing for the first time..... nothing happened.  Really, it was quite uneventful.  They sniffed, were like, "Oh, yeah, hey." and then went about their business.  A good first step.  Stormy was great with Rich and me as well.  He is such a polite, adorable little gentleman :)  We plugged in our heater with an extension cord to the house and spent the night in the trailer in Verena's driveway.  We're so classy.

In the morning, we practiced trailer loading with Stormy.  He can be nervous about new things, and the step up to our trailer is really high so I didn't know if that would scare him.  He took some gentle coaxing and some patience the first time, but after that he loaded on and off like a pro!  I was very impressed.  After that we decided to put Stormy and Gaefa together in the paddock and see how that went.  They really seemed to hit it off well.  There was a lot of flirting going on, actually.  Stormy would get up close and Gaefa would do a tiny little squeal, not the kind like "stay away from me!" but more like "I'm pretending not to like this but I really do, please continue".  Silly girl.  It was really nice to see her so relaxed and taking in the new environment without any issues.  And it was also really great to see Stormy so relaxed with us.  He is so cute!  He is boyish where Gaefa is feminine- big solid head, stocky build- but sweet and quiet as a mouse.  I love these two.

The rest of the day was spent petting horses (me), fixing the trailer brakes (Rich), and lining up places to stay the rest of the way that offer horse boarding.  After we leave Edmonton, the next stop is Dawson Creek, BC which is the official start of the Alaska Highway.  I think we're going to have a lot of fun (all eight of us) and I can't wait to get started in the morning.

Huge, huge thank you to Verena and Mike for being awesome and letting us into their home & lives while we were here.  They fed us, let us take SHOWERS, do LAUNDRY, helped make phone calls, and were just generally awesome.  We'd love to come visit you and your crew again some time, and would really love to host you in Alaska if you ever make the trip.  I bet Stormy would like that too.

Time to rest up... it's about to get real!