What a Summer

Alternate title could be All the AirBnBs since I'll have stayed at 6-7 by the end of the year 4 of which are for this trip.

This has been a crazy year for me travel-wise. In the past going to Lexington for the Pony Cup and doing a couple of work trips (of one week or less) to WA were about all I did. This year that has not been the case.

Certainly can't argue about the accommodations

 First there were a couple of long work trips to Seattle early in the year. I went out in January and again in March for a week. Then I went to Omaha for World Cup which was amazing! After that, I ended up with another trip (this time stressful) to Seattle in June. I had a chance to recover from that and then got to travel to Lexington for Pony Cup again :)

And of course got to hang out with Jen and Connor!!! Photo credit: Jen's mom

I've known that I'd have a longer trip at the end of July for work (mildly stressful) but then that turned into a longer and more stressful trip that was going to be 8-9 days. However, plans changed and it's now going to be 12 days. Yikes...

Puget Sound outside my bedroom

I do get to go to Portland which is a trip that I'd previously wanted to do this year but decided not to do for financial reasons. However, work is paying for the hotel and since I can drive down there from Seattle I don't need to pay for a flight so I'll have 2-3 days in Portland this weekend (for the cost of a rental car) and then back to Seattle for the following week.

The day before I left I was feeling the stress and didn't want to get
into an argument with her so we just cuddled and played in the arena.
She did think I was unfair not getting her Starbucks

I'm also in Seattle long enough that I'm getting to do more exploring than I have in the past which is awesome but... I really miss my pony and I miss Veggie. I'm probably going to go slightly crazy between not being able to see them for 12 days. Not getting to ride means that I'll need to remember what I'm doing when I get back along with likely being sore. All of that with just about 3 weeks to prep for our show at the end of August.

Opportunities like this just don't come around that often and even though it's stressful it's fun to explore and get to spend more time on the west coast. I haven't seen the ocean since I was 18 and I'm SOOO excited to get to go back in a couple of days. I've also had Portland, or OR in general, on my list of places I'd like to live so it will be nice to get to spend more time there so that I can decide if it stays on my list.

Missing this nose soooo much right now

I do have two more trips planned this year. One at the end of August to Rochester, NY (can't wait to hang out with my sister and BIL and meet Bobby!!) and one more for work in October/November but hopefully that will be it. I'm also really hoping that next year there will be less travel. I'm really a homebody but I haven't been able to travel that much in the past and I don't think next year will have as many opportunities for travel so I'm going to enjoy this while I can and pray that I don't fall off or completely forget what I'm doing when I get to ride my pony again.

T minus 8 days and counting until I get to fly back home.

NDPC Recap Part: 2

On Saturday I had three people to watch ride and those rides spanned the entire day from 9:50ish am to 5:30ish pm. For a horse show, though, that didn't feel too early and since I'd planned to spend all of Saturday at the horse park those ride times actually worked out.

10 years! It sounds like it was so big this year that next year they may need additional space.
That says a lot since they were using at least four of the
five rings in the KYHP dressage complex the whole time.

I got to the horse park just a bit before the first ride, which was Jen's, after stopping for Starbucks. I'm getting spoiled with  my trips to Seattle where there's literally a Starbucks on every corner and it took me a bit longer to get coffee than I expected so I didn't get there quite as early as I'd hoped. At any rate I had a bit of time to chat with Jen's mom and Connor's breeder before Jen went in for her ride.

I don't want to give away any spoilers but their ride was fantastic! I ended up video taping the ride on Jen's mom's video camera plus I don't like to share pictures of people riding unless they approve them first so I don't have any media but I'm sure Jen will have some to share.

After her ride we talked a bit and then Jen headed back to the barn with Connor while I waited with the other two for a golf cart because #ourfeethurt.



We got back, got Connor hosed off and helped with a scary loose horse situation (everyone was fine as far as we could tell). We grabbed some food and then headed over to the Mustang Makeover to see what was going on over there.

Helping with Connor's bath. He clearly wasn't too fussed by the loose horse.

Unfortunately we would have needed to buy tickets to see any of the demonstrations and we weren't quite dedicated enough to do that but we did check out some of the horses and burros that were up for adoption and walked through the barns.

I got another golf cart ride back and made it just in time for H's ride! I took video again for her and this time the GRP pony filly did really, really well and they snagged a placing for their training level class. I spent some time hanging out with H and the women from her barn again after and then went to do more shopping!

I did a really good job of budgeting this weekend and didn't splurge much other than on coffee. For shopping I just ended up with a set of appropriately pony sized, navy blue polos (no pictures but I'll get some of them on her soon). They were a good price and it's so tough to find polos that fit Katai's dainty legs so I couldn't say no. I also got an NDPC logo grey polo shirt that will work great for schooling shows and clinics. They had a lot of really cute NDPC merchandise this year but the polo was the most useful so that's what I decided to go with. That was the extent of my shopping which is both disappointing and makes me happy haha.

By that point it was around 3:00pm and I was dragging a bit. The weather was cooler than I had thought it might be but still quite hot and humid and it had been a long day in the sun so I decided to head to the Starbucks for some coffee and air-conditioning. I got back around 4:30ish and headed over to watch Emilie ride!

Busy warm up ring

By that point I just couldn't be in the sun anymore so I found some shade that put me a ways away from the ring Emilie was in but where I could see her warm up and ride. She and Crumble looked really, really good and the judge must have thought so as well since, from Facebook, it looks like they made out pretty darn well ;) Emilie is an amazing rider and it was really great to see her warm up and ride her test, it certainly gives me something to aspire to!

After that I pretty much packed up and headed back to the Airbnb. It was great to be back in the air-conditioning and I spent the evening watching Friends on cable (I don't have cable so it was a treat) and spending some time on my computer.

The person taking care of Veggie (I booked through Wag)
took this picture of him modeling the bandana.
I think it may be a bit too big and he clearly doesn't think it's his color.

My flight back on Sunday morning was uneventful and I got home around 2:00. I quickly got an Uber home, drove to Minneapolis to pick up Veggie, and then headed to the barn for my lesson! It was a really great lesson but I'm going to make you wait until the next post to read about it ;)

I had such a great time at NDPC this year and really hope that I can spectate again next year and that in the next few years I can go to compete!!

An Ideal Day

I'm sure that many of us have ideas of what our ideal day(s) would like like. There are so many things that I think would make up an ideal day. A beach in Greece with a Mimosa would certainly be an ideal day for example ;) This past Saturday though was the most ideal day, especially horse wise, that I've had recently.

To start off I got to sleep in and then had some of my homemade cold brew coffee with my favorite vegan creamer. I pulled Youtube up on my tv via ChromeCast and watched a bunch of riding videos.

I had a delicious lunch and then took a break to bring the Vegetable out for a walk. Around 12:30 I headed to H's barn for a Janet Foy clinic! What's really cool about this barn and these clinics with Janet is that it's a really small audience and most of the people watching are also riding. I think I was actually the only auditor on Saturday. They aren't advertised beyond an occasional Facebook post by the owner (H's trainer) and with the small number of people watching (2-5) every time I've been there Janet really interacts with everyone.

The other thing that makes it fun is that this barn has the highest concentration of upper level riders in my area. Around here there aren't many people riding above 3rd level but on Saturday I watched two riders that were competing at Prix St. George, one at 4th, and one that was training Grand Prix movements on her baby horse that still isn't showing at that level. She did a couple of PERFECT one tempis and I got to watch as they introduced canter pirouettes, and worked on getting better piaffe and passage.

Ignore my inability to get a good canter picture, this pair was AMAZING!

H was the last ride of the day on her pony and it was really great because they worked on stuff that I can (for the most part) do even if we're not as good or consistent at it yet. They focused a lot on straightness since he's wiggly and then did some lateral work and ended with counter canter. H did a great job and it was great to be able to learn from Janet while watching someone riding at a similar level to me :)

Hungry pony after a great ride :)

I'd worn my riding clothes and went out to ride my pony directly from the clinic, after stopping for my favorite Starbucks drink (which I got to use my free drink stars for!) and stopping at Chipotle for dinner.

I got to the barn and the weather was so perfect that I decided to ride outside. I've been using the extra oomf from riding outside to really work on canter since Katai doesn't keep trying to quit on me. I really focused on maintaining the rhythm in the canter and getting it slowed down while maintaining the jump and longer stride length. I also did my 5-10 minutes of sitting trot and started to feel like I was actually getting somewhere. After another little walk break I did some walk/canter and canter/trot/canter transitions. She did so well! She was more hot about the walk/canter on Saturday and was launching more. I'm curious to check with Jane to see if it's good launching (powerful and engaged) or if she's launching so that she doesn't have to step under and carry herself up into the transition. As it was, since I didn't know if it was good or bad I just giggled and carried on. The canter/trot/canters across the diagonal were beautiful as well! She did fewer trot steps and maintained her rhythm better. Plus we got the correct lead every time!

These gifs aren't from Saturday and she's been getting better and better outside so I'll need to get some new footage soon but I realized that I'd never shared these.

The trot is getting so much bigger and more uphill! (I was pushing her sideways in the second one trying to get her off my left leg) 

Since she did harder work and spent a lot more time in canter along with needing to work harder with the uneven terrain I kept it shorter so our total ride was more like 35 minutes than 45 but that was still an improvement so I'll take it!

Slowly but surely getting more strength at the canter :)

It was an amazing, relaxing, but productive horse focused day :)

Second Day at World Cup Finals: Exploring Omaha

I'm such a dork but it's not every day that
you see equestrian sports on bus stop benches

Since my mom was nice enough to accompany me and dressage (and horses in general) just isn't her thing I'd left Monday as a day where we could do some other things so that she'd have a little break. I was also excited to explore some of the other things in Omaha including the Zoo.

We got up and went for a walk to a coffee shop but unfortunately couldn't find the Starbucks we were headed for so we went to a nearby Target Starbucks instead. After that we headed straight to the Omaha zoo!

Grumpy bird was grumpy

It was fun and I got so many pictures of the animals. We have a great zoo locally but they don't/haven't had elephants or rhinos so it was fun to see those here. It was a little rainy and cold out but by the time that we left it had warmed up to 57* and felt pretty good.

It was a long good walk so my feet and legs were quite sore by the end of the day but I certainly got my steps in.

Poisonous snakes may be part of why living in MN is nice

After stopping for some food we went back to the adorable AirBnB so that my mom could take a nap since she hadn't slept particularly well the day before.

In the afternoon my mom and I got coffee at an award winning local coffee shop called Archetype Coffee and it was delicious. Otherwise we pretty much snacked and rested for the rest of the evening. So nice to be here with my mom but it's a bit different than how I may spend my time if I were on my own :)