Thursday, March 26, 2009

Wish me luck...

Well, tomorrow, Friday, I have my first Private lesson with Phil! (Except for the time that I was the only one who showed up, which really doesn't count...) But yeah... I am excited! And he has managed to talk me into doing the group lesson on Saturday, too, so I don't even have to miss that! Yay! Apparently we are working on conditioning (mine as well as hers), so we have to work her as much as we can , especially before I start lacrosse next week. Gah. I will update you as to how all of this went later, promise. (probably on a Sunday, like always. :) )

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Just another happy weekend!

Well, the week has flown by, and I once again find myself blogging on a Sunday. But whatever, Sundays are good. This Friday, I went to Mr. SHS, which is a competition to find the funniest guy at our school. It was pretty good. Then on Saturday I went to my lesson, which I will pretty much skip since I know that I am the only one who reads my novels about the previous lessons. : ) But Kelly did fall off, and we got it on video, so that may show up on here later, as well as some other footage of my courses and such. After I went home, I had to go buy my friend a birthday present, and after that I wanted to go back to the barn, and I practically begged my mom, but she said NO! : ( So I went back today, and we all (me, Brooke, AK, Beth, Lizz, Maddy, and Sandi) all went to Double G. Yay! Now I am home, freshly showered, and once again eating junk food and relaying my escapades to you fine people. (Probably just Lizz and Liz, but that's okay!) I like to put it out there. Later!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

I love the Barn!

Today made me really excited for this show season. I guess it has just been so long since I have had to get up at 4:00 in the morning, stand out in the rain for hours, spook in the flat class, go off course, or be the seventh out of seven, that I only remember the good things, like that feeling - the I'm-on-top-of-the-world feeling that you have when you win a class, or how happy you are when you just get in a great round, or even the excited rush you get when you are cleaning your tack down at the barn at 10:00 at night and you finally realize that tomorrow you will be at a show. I miss all of that stuff. And we were looking at the big eight horse trailer today, and I can just imagine all of the mornings this summer, yawning, and loading Breezy into the back, or even taking her out of the trailer and walking her around while she explores the "strange new place where we have landed". It just makes me want to yank out all of my show clothes and wear them around the house. : )

My weekend...

Well, first off, Saturday:
Ok, I've gotta tell you, I nearly had a heart attack at the barn saturday morning when PHIL WAS EARLY!!! Not even "on time" but early... as in, before 11:00! Isn't that impressive? Anyway, we had a good lesson. We did some bounces and gymnastics, and they got up pretty high towards the end, about 2'9". Breezy loved it. She is just starting to get back into shape now after her brief (about three weeks) rest time from getting a splinter in her eye in the fall. It is a shame though, because I am going to start lacrosse in two weeks, and then I am not going to be able to come to the barn after school, because I am going to have practice every day until 5 or so. But anyway, we had just finished our last run through the gymnastic (which went very well) and we were watching lizz go. She was riding Corona, who she highly dislikes, because he is a jerk. Not to mention, he dumped her into the concrete supports in the indoor a few weeks ago. But anyway, they finally got a good distance into the bounce, and Lizz even made him stretch and get the two stride after it, which Corona had been having trouble with before, but he took a big jump, and it unsettled her just a little, and she lost her stirrup. Then, as they went around the corner she just got bounced off, because Corona has nothing to hold onto, or grip with your legs, or anything. But it didn't really look like she was even going to hit that hard, because she almost had one of her feet under her, but I don't know how, but she managed to fall flat on her back and crack her head on the ground. You could even hear her helmet crack as she fell. It was awful. Plus, she had already broken the top of her helmet on the beam in the loft. But now, the thing is cracked all the way through. She is definitely going to need another one. And she broke her glasses right in half along the bridge, which is quite a feat, since she fell on the back of her head. She is going to look like Harry Potter. : ) I hope she gets better soon, and doesn't have a concussion.Love you Lizzie!
After the lesson we all (me, brooke, jess, beth, and AK) did chores, and then we all decided to ride some of the horses that never get ridden, because, I mean, it was a nice day out, I was feeling brave, I haven't fallen off in a while, (knock on wood) and I needed to break in my new helmet. : ) So I rode Leroy, Ak rode Lego, Beth rode Cheyenne for Lizz, Brooke rode Slick, and Jess, who was feeling particularly brave, took little Jazz for a spin. It went very well. I ended up on Lego and Slick, as well, and actually did not fall off of any of them. We didn't really even have any incidents. : ) But I guess they really aren't bad guys, they're just misunderstood. : ) After that, Beth had to go home. (Do your Spanish, Beth!), but the rest of us went over to Jess's house, which is actually really close to my house. We ate pizza and breadsticks, and watched bullriding for a while, then watched Wedding Crashers, for lack of anything better to do. This morning I went back to the barn, cleaned a stall, then went home. Now I am blogging, drinking iced tea, and putting away laundry. This is my life. I go from high energy, fun barn world, to home world, in which I flop out and enjoy not doing anything. Sorry for this being so long. I don't understand how I can be so happy in both of them....

Monday, March 9, 2009

Great Day!!!!

Today was a very good day. First of all, we had mac and cheese for supper, which always makes me happy, but you probably don't care. Also, I got a 100 on my Algebra II test, which not only counts as a 100 test, but also replaces my lowest test grade, so it is the equivalent of TWO hundreds. Yay! And finally, I am writing this on MY NEW LAPTOP!!! That's right! I got a laptop!!!! It is a really cool black Toshiba, and I named it Sampson. I LOVE IT!!!!! That's about it for now, but I just wanted to tell the world about my BRILLIANT day! Hooray!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Me and Breezy!

Lizz put this picture on her blog, but I loved it so much that I wanted to put it on mine too. But you know what, that got me thinking that I would put up Breezy's and my all time bests. So here they are.

Horrible Equitation (I just can't help launching myself in front of the saddle EVERY TIME!)
This is one of my best older pictures. This was actually a fairly good-sized jump, you just can't see the front rail of the oxer. And look at the knees! They're perfect!

Biggest JUMP EVER! 3 foot 3 inches. And, for once in my life, good eq. Yay!


This one is just cute. She has her ears pricked and everything. (Which is quite a feat, since we are standing next to arch enemy Mocha.)

Monday, March 2, 2009

Some more pictures of Lizz!

Lizz sends me all of my awesome pictures, so it's only fair for me to get her hers. Here you go!

I like this one a lot. Good Equitation.
Good Equitation, again. When I get to little jumps I go into full blown Jump Position, usually at least three and a half strides before the jump. Haha.

Brooke, me and Lizz at my New Year's Eve Sleepover. More of these later.



I love this one. We are rising from the deep. The other one is Lizz, even though you can't see her head. Brooke was having a punch enthusiasm day. : )



All of those darn Pictures for Lizz!

Ok, Lizzie. Here you go. Better Late Than Never.

Superman!

Action Shot!

Calm, Cool, not so collected. : )


Sprrring!



AND Corona... in the extension. : )





Lesson Saturday

Saturday was a good day for me and the Little Beast. First of all, Phil was only 6 minutes late. (Meaning he arrived at 12:06 when he is supposed to be there at 11:00). Then, it was a nice temperature outside, so I didn't have to wear my huge coat. ALSO, all of the snow has fallen off of the indoor roof, so we won't have to deal with that falling off and giving the precious beast an excuse to pretend spook. That was what kept happening at our LAST lesson. It was pretty touch and go at a few parts, especially when she started doing it without warning. She wouldn't even tense up or anything, she would just all of a sudden jump to the side, dead stop, and fling her head up. It was aggravating. But anyway, back to Saturday. We did some "English riding club" work, meaning that the six of us were all on one circle on half of the ring, which was difficult to manage even when we were standing still. Then, we had to trot around the half ring (which is quite small for six largeish horses) and do trot poles. Then we had to trot a little fence. And of course, I, the fastest, was in the back, and Jaxon, the slowest, was in the front, setting the pace. Needless to say, we had some issues with the pace. And THEN we all had to canter around the half at the same time, a feat we can barely handle in the whole ring. Of course, I was on the only horse that kicks. Great. Surprisingly, though, Breezy was both rather slow (for her) and rather docile, which is probably a first. Then Phil finally let us off of the circle, but he had each of us do the fence on a bending circle, twice, which wasn't hard for Breezy. She's such a showoff. The most entertaining part, by far, was watching the others go. Kelly, the new girl, had been having some problems with Corona, and he pulled the same dirty trick that he always pulls (the same one that got poor Lizz off a few weeks ago) so Kelly fell off. Then, poor old Zip took this really fantastic long spot, and was so surprised that he tripped on the way down, which sent Lizz flying too. Then AK had a couple of close shaves with Jaxon, but she managed to stay on. After everyone had left, Phil had me and Breezy do this crazy confusing figure eight system, which was very, very fun, but we got to the point where Phil had to tell me in the middle, "okay go left, not go right, now left again," because it was so confusing when he explained it that I had to just wing it. But it was fun. I love Breezy. She's a star. Brooke said that she was a 30,000 dollar horse before she got her eye poked out, and she's still just as capable. I am so lucky to have her.

More snow.... Sigh

Well, today is yet another snow day. Isn't that just wonderful. Bleh. I will get back to telling my life story soon, but just for an update, no school. That is our fifth. If we have one more, we will have used up all of the ones that we have planned, and we'll have to start pushing back the date that we get out of school, which I definitely do not want. What I want is to be out of school as soon as possible so that I can go to the barn all the time and start having HORSESHOWS! We are gonna have 3 home shows this year! Yay!!! But to quote the philospohical words of Lizz: "Summer is on the way!!!"