Adventuretime, Homesickness and Horse Shows

I'm sure you've all noticed I've been gone for quite some time from the blogsphere. Mostly because  I've been having the adventure of a lifetime, but also because taxes and new job hunt and errands and life.

First, I wanted to thank you all for your notes on my last post. Grandma was a special person to me and it truly rocked my world in the worst way when she left us. I will always remember the impact she had on my horsey life...miss you Gma!

Secondly, where in the world have I been? technically just the USA...but ALL OVER IT!

My best friend from ohio called me about a month ago and was like "Hey. I'm moving to L.A. for an engineering job. They gave me $5k to relocate. Want to keep me company and pay no dollars?"

And I was like...

She continued, "We are going to take 9 days to drive 2500 miles. We can stop in Nashville, Memphis, Dallas, Amarillo, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, Albuquerque, then stop in vegas for 3 days then end in L.A. hows that sound?"

And I was like...

So we did. And it was BANGIN.

 I have about a 100 more pics (all on my FB) from this amazing trip! My favorites had to be Nashville and the Grand Canyon. Vegas was...weird. But fun. Met some interesting people and saw some baller landscapes. The USA is so diverse! From a small town Midwestern town, the difference is crazy. I loved it!

I was SERIOUSLY homesick after the first 5 days though-it was nice to get away but I really did miss my boys. All of them. Dog, human, and horse. Horse especially.

As soon as I got home, despite the -15* windchill, I hopped on him and romped in the snow!

 He was squirrely, but soooo happy to be out and paid attention to again.

I have two short term goals we will be working on in February. One is to become the Thoroughbred ambassador for NVRA where I adopted Yankee from. Been working on the entry all month...now I just need the world to thaw so I can make my video. Two is to make it to the WWU Jumper Show at the end of the month. He's had over a month off so that may be too steep a goal, but hes a TB, he bounces back nicely.

We most likely won't make Texas Rose in March because I am flat broke. Though the tax return will be nice and my inheritance from Gma, but I want to save that AND we haven't ran XC in over a year. ACK!

Currently lining up the rest of the show season. STOKED!

Now I just need Missouri to stop pretending its Antarctica so I can WORK MY HORSE

Cruel Irony

Yesterday, a few days after my last post discussing bad luck and loss, my dear grandma gained her wings in heaven.

I did not take the news well and shut down completely for a few hours.

I had just been thinking about calling her to tell her I miss her when my phone rang....

I am not very good at putting together words in times like these, so I will share my favorite picture of her and my first horse, Dolly.

13 long years ago, the day I got my first horse

Grandma played a huge part in my horsey life and always loved my horses just like I did. We shared something no one else came close to in my life-the love for horses. She grew up with belgians and told me so many stories about them. I made her tell me over and over because I loved them so much.

She was a fabulous seamstress and would fix anything my crazy ponies ripped. She defended my sassy pony to my parents when she tossed me and they threatened to sell her. She made costumes for 4H costume class at fair. She braved the heat to sit and cheer me on at shows. She came with me on my secret mission to acquire my mini horses (much to my parents dismay, later when they came home to minis in the field!). She bought my mini, Z, her first harness and cart. She cried with me when Spirit died. And when she started to lose her mobility, she still made her best effort to come to a few shows.

I will miss this woman more than I can even describe and I don't really know how else to end this but by saying I love you!

No Such Luck

Tragedy seems to strike horse people more than anyone else. 

I will never understand why horses are so heartbreaking. 

Not only did eventings' Santa's Helper AND Lionheart sadly pass away, but quite a few of my friends have lost horses recently as well. As I'm sure most of you on the blogosphere know,  Mr. Red Man left this world way too soon this past week. My thoughts are with Aimee and everyone else affected by Cuna's passing. I can't even imagine the heartbreak. 

RIP big red horse, we all loved you dearly. 

In other news, I have fallen ill YET AGAIN and haven't ridden all week. It is unfortunate as we have had 3 days of beautiful warmish weather. Of course later this week it's going to get frigid, just in time for me to get better. 

I've been hangin with my main man a lot on the couch. We've watched at least 4 movies. 

Happily though, my hay barn is stocked!! I filled my spots with 28 bales of grass and 13 alfalfa. I'm one happy girl. Nothing like having a full refrigerator for your horse haha!

I promise I will be more interesting when I get better! We have big plans for this year! Later this month I'm going on vaca to Las Vegas and LA but then we jump right into showing with a few jumper schooling shows in February and hopefully Texas Rose in March! 

Part III & Final Recap of 2013

September got hot again so I shaved the beast for the first time. I wanted to do a trace, but with flair....

So I did...

I jumped tackless....

..and fell off/bailed for the first time in almost two years when I couldn't stop him. Bonked my head pretty hard learned that jumping an OTTB tackless is a very dumb stupid idea. Cool pics though. Anything for the money shot :)

... we wrapped up Sept with my friend Jess jumping Yankee..

...and me, to practice for WWU schooling show in Oct..

The first thing we did in October was the WWU schooling jumper show. It was a shit show and I don't want to talk about it...but Yankee did very well, it was all mental issues and forgetting courses blah blah blah...

 ...and was alright with my spoils.

I then accidentally made my horse a nudist by messing up on freehanding more checkboard. But turned out being OK with it. MUCH easier to clean and maintain. I will probably always fully clip from now on. He just looks so sexy naked.

November we jumped quite a bit..

...we had an AMAZING jump school and I remembered how to eq....

...we semi-mastered flying changes...(FINALLY)

 Through boredom and creativity I got this bangin' reel...

 

And we ended with a Bipolar month. going from t shirt weather to freezing in less than a week. I ended the year with this notable ride....

BOUNCEY

 He then got thrush pretty bad in December and I got sick and all of a sudden here is January and a fresh, new year.

Overall looking back I can say we did A LOT in 2013, but didn't really accomplish much show wise, like I had planned to. HOWEVER I am more than proud of our training successes and will use our hard work to further and hopefully advance in 2014!

Get out da way, we have ARRIVED!

2013 In Review PTII

We left off at prepping for SMSG in July and it was worth it! We had a blast, Yankee was a super star and I ended up 2nd overall and my team was second overall as well...

Stunna

In August we took this adorable picture...

...beasted over this triple bar...

...he traded in his jumping shoes for a lesson pony for my eager friends...

...he got 2 weeks off when I got the flu...

..had some herp derp moments...

...and took this BOSS ass pic...

In September we were headed towards Chesterfield in hopes of winning the coveted first place neck ribbon in the Classic so we practiced really hard....

I guess I really like riding in blue...

...And ended up not winning first, but still cleaned up with a SOLID badass effort from my boy on a hot day. I also got free bloody mary's so that was a win!

twerking out

blue shirt...the color winners wear

...somewhere in between August and Sept Yankee had surgery on his tailbone to remove a cancerous tumor. I almost fainted when I heard the sound of the bottom 2 inches of my baby's tailbone being crunched off and removed. I also deeply  mourned the loss of a solid amount of his hair.  While he was off...

...we practiced our bowing...

Last shiny pic we took before he got hairy

...and then we came back strong and  jumped four feet...

October finally got chilly so I put my boots and jacket on for the first time, drank lots of pumpkin spice coffee and went on our first trail ride of fall...

...galloped out in the field...

Rode bareback dressage one day with my boys...

dog gets a 10 for movement

Got REALLY good at bowing..

...jumped some more triple bars...

...rode a shitty little pony and loved it...

at least he's cute

...and made winter my"get really good at dressage" season in prep for moving to FL...

I just....really like blue okay

 Our last installment in remembrance of 2013  will begin with Yankee's fresh new haircut

2013 In Review PTI

I usually don't do one of these since my years have been less than eventful lately, but I did a SWELL job of documenting pretty much everything I DID end up doing and waded through 678 pictures that were labeled on FB as "Riding 2013".

I should really call 2013 the year of-riding-a-lot-and-getting-somewhere-then-something-happens-and-we take-a-step-back-and-nothing-really-gets-accomplished-year.

Some memorable moments....

February was mild so we jumped a lot..

March was a month of dressage...

Practicing for the schooling show after no recognized shows in previous year

Schooling show at Fox Run in an attempt to gain practice for first event of the year in May. We got a 1st & 3rd

April was a big month. In spite of a thrush outbreak, we were busy prepping for the first event of the year and did a bunch of jumping...

...and went XC schooling for the first time in over a year. We tackled Prelim fences in attempt to be more than ready for Training. We had some rough patches but overall, great school and I was feeling alright about showing again...

May was not a good month. My truck broke down 2 days before my event and no one had room to take us so we had to scratch. I felt defeated...again. Little did I know that would begin the "Summer of Expensive Shitstorms".

We also said goodbye to one of my very best friends, H and her horse Pronto, the big black perch cross. We went on a trail ride a week before she left for grad school in TX and it was beautiful!

I went home in June to Ohio and while I was there, visited my QH babygirl, Dutchess. I sold her before I moved to Missouri in 2009 to my best friends mom. She was lovely as always...

July was a BUSY month and  miserable one. It was SO damn hot!  July 2nd Yankee made a new friend...

Smokey, a new boarder and Yankee's new pasture mate

I tried to get back into riding more and prepping for a show in Chesterfield that I wanted to go to...

Yankee was ridden by a local girl in a 3 day dressage clinic...

I think they both almost died from heat exhaustion

We had a fun gallop...

I took Isis swimming and almost died from having too much fun!

We went through a pretty rough patch in jumping and several bad rides...

Fail

Practiced for SMSG and put in some work in the ring...

...to be continued from SMSG