Birthday Fun

December 23, 2012 Lauren Mauldin Comments 0 Comment

Today is my birthday! Being that I am a Christmas baby, usually we are traveling or Christmas shopping or doing something along those lines on my birthday. This year we stayed in town for the holidays, so that meant I got to do whatever I wanted… which turned out being totally awesome.

After birthday breakfast tacos, we headed to the Austin Zoo. This isn’t your average privately funded zoo – all the animals are rescues from roadside circuses, pets gone wrong, and wildlife problems. My favorite is the petting zoo, where they have 5 of these little Axis Deer. They’re the size of a Labrador, and eat little pellets out of my hand. This one is my new best friend. Once we get to the petting zoo part I just park myself in front of one of the Axis deer, coo sweet nothings to it about how precious she is, and growl at any children that come close to me.

I also got awesome presents, which included a non-smelly not falled on previously helmet and this beautiful bracelet. It’s made of silver name plates, and has the names of my 1st school horse love and 3 of the horses I’ve owned: Doodles, Lydia, Elvis and Simon.

Our last stop before birthday dinner was to go give Simon his Christmas present and take some pictures. Even though he asked for a plethora of items, all poor little Simon got this year was a Likit. Even though it wasn’t a fancy new saddle or bridle, I think he liked it. There was a lot of this:

A little of that.

And finally some of this.

We also took some conformation shots, which are my favorite because I love to compare how skinny he was when I started to now. Don’t mind his winter coat, which is looking a little ratty. Nobody in our barn clips, and I didn’t have a turnout and set of clippers ready to go this year so we’re going to rough it. Texas winters are really mild anyway.

Here’s a before an after comparison shot of the latest conformation pictures I have of him. The top one was taken in September, and the bottom one today.