We waited a long time for this foal (baby horse)! Although most horses carry a foal for 340 day, Anna’s mare, Elbe, carried this baby for 374 days! She was a month overdue. At one point, weeks after the baby was due, Anna was convinced Elbe wasn’t even pregnant; only fat. She wasn’t showing any signs of being pregnant except for the “hay belly”. As it turns out, Elbe was “cooking her just long enough to be perfect.”

As Trakehner foals must be named with the first letter of the mother’s name, her name had to start with an “E”. With the help of her Trainer, Jeannette, we decided on “Expressive”, we call her Penny for short.

She is an absolutely adorable baby Trakehner. She is not as large as our last baby, Linux, who is a colt (male).

Here are some pictures of her.

A couple weekends ago, we started a little project to add a Trakehner Logo to the barn gable. Here’s the progress:

First we had the Trakehner logo printed out on a 36″ tall sheet of paper. Using a razorblade, we cut the design into the wood. We made the cuts visible with a sharpie, and cut the logo out with a jigsaw.

Then Anna painted it and I put it up on the barn:

Here’s a view of the front of our barn now, with the new logo:

We probably could have brought the logo down a little bit, but I think it looks great! You can see in this last picture, the newly-stained wood, and the trim pieces that really put the finishing touches on the barn.

Trakehner Logos Everywhere!

For Christmas, I bought Anna a window sticker for her truck window, and we finally got it completed! It is Anna’s horse-breeding business’s logo accompanied by the Trakehner logo. Here’s a picture:

You can see more about Anna’s horse-breeding business at her Top Priority Trakehners Website.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Anna, Carol and Ashton went for a trail ride and rode through our lake to get to (and from) the trail. It was very fun.

Here’s the mandatory picture of Mocha. Although I have two for you this time because I couldn’t decide which Easter picture was better.

Love,
Ashton + Anna

Here’s a video where Ashton investigates where all this water is coming from:

The best part of having a lake in your front yard is the beauty. Water can sure be beautiful.

We have even had a few flocks of ducks stay with us for a couple days on their way to Canada.

At one time we counted 14 ducks swimming around. They were really hard to get close enough to take good close ups (even with my zoom lens). They were so cute swimming around in pairs.

While large parts of the lake were still frozen, Anna went out into it to retrieve a gate that had floated away. The dogs followed, and Rosco jumped up onto the ice. (He ended up getting stuck in the Ice, but Chief and Anna came back to break through the ice.)

So here’s a picture of the road that used to go to lead us to the neighbor’s house:

And what would an Ashton Anna blog update be without a picture of Mocha?

Enjoy!
Ashton&Anna

Love you forever,
Ashton

To the right, you can see our latest addition to our Ranch, Linux, Trakehner colt (boy). You can also see Anna, Ashton and Mocha.

Florida

This year started with a trip to Florida so we could see family and spend time in the Florida sun. We stayed with David and Marcy for few months. Ashton found some beach volleyball players and amazingly got a sunburn in the middle of winter.

We also got to spend time with Ashton’s relatives: Grandpa Joe, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Lenny, and cousins Jared and Evan.

Montana

In June, Anna’s Pregnant Mare gave birth to Linux, an adorable, kind colt (pictured above).

Ashton learned how to weave apple pie crusts (and make apple pies).

We had another handful of friends visit us this summer. Grandpa Joe and Geoffrey visited for over a week. It’s always so much fun having Grandpa Joe around.

Just before our family came to visit, one of my best friends from school agreed to come and live with us for a year. Ashton has been teaching him websites, and he’s been helping Anna with the horses and running the ranch.

While Geoffrey and Ross were here, we managed to have a successful one-day LAN (computer game) party!

November

In November, Anna went to the Florida to visit her friends at Valhalla Farms and attend the American Trakehner Association’s Annual Convention. Ashton went to Front Sight for a four-day defensive handgun course, and then to Los Angeles for Delphi LA’s Alumni Weekend.

Websites in a Flash

Our website business, Websites in a Flash, has continued to expand. We’ve been very fortunate to find some very good help and have been keeping them busy with lots of work. We’ve had a lot of fun working on projects together. We even had a “Formal Friday” where we all went out to lunch dressed to the nines. We have a lot of fun.

Trakehners and Dressage

Anna has continued to show her horses in Dressage competitions in the North West. She had three successful shows with several first and second placings. She earned second place in her division for Trakehners across the nation!

You can see her horses at http://www.tptrakehners.com/

<3,
Ashton and Anna Sanders

Volleyball

The party started with Volleyball. Where Cesar and his Lady Dragons beat us 3 to 1:

It was actually a pretty close game. I had a couple good plays, but also managed to lose a game for us =/ Obviously, I don’t have any pictures of me failing. It was very fun playing on such a short net though.

Basketball

Basketball was a little better for the Alumni. We won 40 to 26, but this is the best shot I got of us… about to do a jump shot. =)

Our team was Dane and Brando Christensen, Damian Espinosa, a skilled parent and me.

Soccer

Definitely the highlight of the weekend, the soccer game was awesome. Although I was sure we would win easily, it ended up being a very very close game. We won 3 to 2. Adam got 2 goals, and Kerry Jones got 1 goal. I got two assists .

Here’s a couple action shots:
Geoffrey:

Ashton vs Cesar:

Here’s some pics of the team:

Jump Shot!

I was the only one to play in all three alumni games. =)

And here’s a few pics of good friends at the soccer game:

It was so great seeing everyone. I hope to make it to the next one too!
<3
Ashton

(btw, All of these pictures were taken by Anna except the ones I took of her.)

Unfortunately, almost none of my friends made it. The only one who made it go right to come to the class with me was Emily, a friend of a friend who I hadn’t actually met in person before. It could have been much more awkward than it actually was; but turned out great. The only real awkwardness was that everyone in the class assumed we were dating or married.

We got to Front Sight ridiculously early in the morning, and stood in a surprisingly fast “sign-in” line. We got our firearms checked out and went into for our introduction speech.

Then we went off to our Ranges. We started on Range #14; which is part of the semi-new ranges at Front Sight.

Of course, the Front Sight Staff demonstrated the things we would be learning before we learned them (which they did amazingly perfect).

We shot a couple hundred rounds the first couple days, including some simulated bad guy posters:

We had wonderful weather and some fabulous sunsets at range 14.

Even though it was a mid week course (Monday-Thursday), there were around 350 students there. The parking area seemed to extend forever.

For the speed tests, we used targets that would turn away from you after the allotted time. Here’s Emily getting a round off at the last possible second (as the signs turned away):

We also learned some basic movement tactics for going through a doorway. (Side Note: If you every go to a shooting class like Front Sight don’t bring scratched glasses for eye protection. The extra blurriness is not helpful.)

At the very end of the four-day defensive handgun there is a “skills test” that tests the speed you perform all of the things you learned at Front Sight. It was much harder than I expected it would be for me. I did manage to sneak in a “Graduate Certificate” which about 5-7 of the 40 students got. We had one “Distinguished Graduate” in the class.

Here’s me getting my cert and with the Front Sight Instructors:

I have pages I’d love to write about my experience at Front Sight. The course was fun, entertaining, yet very disciplined. Lunch was taken in a room with 300 other “armed-to-the-teeth” students, and it felt like any normal lunch. The Instructors were really amazing. The drills were very repetitive, but the instructors remained enthusiastic, funny and alert.

Probably the most impressive part of the weekend was the Q&A session during one of the lunch breaks. Students were asking all sorts of questions, and Wes answered them all simply and plainly. There was no dodging of questions or any games.

I can’t wait to go back (with Anna this time)!
Ashton

Since I couldn’t leave this as such a boring post, I decided to continue by posting pictures of some of the randomity of 2010: namely anything that wasn’t important enough to have it’s own blog post. Enjoy.

On October 8th, we had “Formal Friday”. We even went out to lunch at the Hot Spot. =)

AshAnna watched Julie and Julia together and Anna got super excited to cook some yummy foods. This was our breakfast the next morning! Yummy!

Oh, and I (Ashton) cooked my first apple pie. I still have lots to learn, but it was edible…

My friend from Von Rocko gave me an awesome storm trooper picture for a present, and I fell in love with StarCraft 2. (I got to play the beta for a few glorious months.) Here’s my work station:

Anna competed in 3 Dressage competitions this year, and qualified to compete a the championships!

What would a blog post be without a picture of Mocha being adorable:

Enjoy,
Ashton

The Trakahner breed puts more importance on the mare (mother), so a Trakahner foal’s name must begin with the first letter of the mare’s name. Before we knew what gender the foal was going to be, Anna did a facebook survey with some filly/colt names that she liked. Here are Anna’s facebook posts and the comments from people who liked Linux:

Anna

So we have a baby horse thus a name survey With this breed of horse I have to pick a name that starts with the same letter as the Mom’s “L”. Here are a few picks for if it’s a girl!
1. Lanai (veranda) 2. Lareina (queen) 3. Laveda (cleansed) 4. Leala (loyal) 5. Lavena (mother of roman people) 6. Lexie (protector of mankind) 7. Labella (beautiful) 8. Laurette (little angel) 9. Lila (night) 10. Lisha

Here’s the Boy’s

1. Lark (songbird) 2. Lake 3. Lanier (woolworker) 4. Lander (landowner) 5. Larkin (fierce) 6. Latif (elegant) 7. Larch (a type of tree) 8. Lacrosse (a game) 9. Lancelot (attendant) 10. Linux (computer nerd name

Don’t forget this is for a horse so it can’t be hard to say quickly. It also can’t be a name that has been used before so don’t be offended if I can’t use a great name as it may be taken.

• 

  Kori Curry I like lander best and Linux the computer one second
• 

  Dawn Denison Larkin is cool. Ditto with Linux
• 

  Devin Hanson Linux is cool I bet Ashton will like that one too.
• 

  Anna Wow guys thanks for all the feedback! Glad you like Linux Not sure about the Twilight thing lol..Sorry Marla Lucy is taken
• 

  Ashton hahah @ linux. That’s hillarious. I also like Lander and Lancelot.

After the majority voted for “Linux” (Pronouced: Lynn-ex), and as a tribute to her nerdy husband, Anna chose Linux for the new colt. (Linux is a computer operating system like Windows.)

Here is a picture of him on his birthday:

Liana was 4 days late. Which just so happened to be when Anna left for a weekend horse show with Ossette. The first day Anna was gone, Carol was feeding the horses, and saw the new baby out in the field. We figured he was born around 4:00. He was so long-legged, it took him 3 or 4 hours before he was able to stand and drink.

It was sprinkling that evening, and a beautiful rainbow came out.

*UPDATE: Here’s some updated pictures of Linux a couple days to a couple months old*

You can see more pictures on Anna’s Top Priority Trakahners Website.

To the right, you can see Liana (pregnant Trakehner mare), Anna, Ashton and Maple Pancake in front of our house.

Our ranch is still keeping us very occupied. We planted another 15 baby trees just in case we run out of oxygen. We added 500 feet of underground water pipes to add 4 hydrants all around our property.

The largest project we have done to date was building a new “Epic Barn!” With the help of many great neighbors and friends, we took down and rebuilt this 1000+ sq ft barn! (You can see endless details on our AshtonAnna Blog. )

Anna’s Top Priority Trakehners is doing great. Liana (above) is pregnant (due 2010). They also purchased a new Trakehner named Elbe: an imported mare from Germany. She had a small meeting with Trakhener Breeders from Idaho and Montana, plus a special guest, Dr. Maren Engelhardt, a breeder from Germany.

Anna went for a 3 week apprenticeship with a Trakhner breeding farm in Florida and started showing the first horse she bred: Ossette.

On the nerd front, Ashton found a great group of web programmers in Montana. He has done a few presentations on topics like CSS and Search Engine Optimization. He’s learned a lot and found some more great friends.

Ashton’s Websites in a Flash business is still doing great, starting out the year with a brand new website re-design and another consistent highest-ever income year. The more he learns, the more he realizes that the learning curve for web developers never really ends.

Here’s a collection of my favorite posts from 2009:

Sledding on our neighbor’s hill

ATV 306′s on Ice

First 2009 Spring Grub Club

Epic Barn Project Begins

Digging a Moat around our house

Epic Barn Completed

<3,
Ashton and Anna