WW: Best Photo All Weekend

I'm BEYOND entertained by this photograph that Liz took while we were at the event. It definitely deserves its own post. 

The context is that we were trying to figure out where to go from there, so we were looking out at the rest of the course. Aaand then a horse came by and we totally missed it. 

None of us were paying any attention, I love how bizarre I look

especially, apparently this is how I look after a week or 

more of insomnia

I definitely think it's got to go up in my office at some point with some motivational saying about how you should live in the moment rather than always looking for something better. 

Shout out to Liz for the amazing photograph, her others are STUNNING as well, I'm so impressed with her. Follow her on IG to see more! 

Kentucky 2022 - Show Jumping & Shopping

The last day of the event was really great. We woke up late-ish and I had actually gotten enough sleep and a good amount of sleep, so I felt pretty good, or would have if my entire body wasn’t sore from the day before! I’m definitely getting myself fitter (and not having a hip injury) the next time I go to this event. 

Seats for show jumping also thanks to Nicole!

We first went to the Correct Connect booth in the trade fair because I’d seen a jump strap I wanted. I’ve never really used one, but I want to get used to using it and figured it’d also be helpful for my niece learning to ride too. While holding the jump strap, I saw that they made super cute breeches in a very light fabric. And so I walked out with a jump strap, and two pairs of breeches, and two shirts to match. I also got a free halter, but it’s gold and brown, which are the opposite of my colors, so I’ll probably donate that. 

We walked around for a bit, but I didn’t find anything else to buy. I did talk to the Free Jump stirrup people but ultimately didn’t buy stirrups for my niece on this trip. She doesn’t need them until she wants to ride by herself and I think we are at least three months out from that. She’s also very little so if I’m going with a safety stirrup, I want something that is actually going to break away if she falls. I think she’s too little for the Free Jump stirrups to actually work. But it was good to learn about them! 

I also had to get this shirt, I love the
color and the fabric was very cool

I legit tried to spend money, I did! I
wanted to buy these boots for schooling
but Ariat does not think that tall
calves go with small feet

When show jumping was an hour out, we went to get lunch and then find our seats. What a fun experience it was to be there in person! We watched the early rounds, learning how the course was riding, but then once we were in the top six or seven, it got super serious. The crowd was silent except for some gasping after tough distances, groaning when a rail came down, and clapping after the insane combination and the entire round. 

There was one option to either make a couple of tight turns to one jump, or to go around over another. It was interesting to see who decided to do what. 

Michael Jung won the event of course. What I didn’t know at the time was that this was his fourth win at Kentucky, which is a record for the event, and it was the lowest score ever won at a five star, making it a world record. How incredible. The man is the best rider in the world, there’s just no doubt. It was so amazing to be there to see him ride in person. 

What a horse, seriously

At the end of the day, I snagged a couple of saddle pads from Smartpak that were on sale and we walked around the property. We ended up seeing fischerChipmunk getting unpacked and hosed off as we walked by. What a cool horse! He was yawning and relaxing as his people fawned over him. 

On Monday, we went to see a thoroughbred breeding farm to see some baby horses. That was super fun! We also went to the museum of the horse at the Horse Park, which was also great. Soon though, it was time to drop Nicole and I off at the airport so that we could fly home and get back to work. And then we were on our respective planes and I was back in California in the very similar weather. 

Look at the little baby! This one warmed
up to us quickly for some scratches

The farms out in Lexington are also unreal!

I’m SO glad I went to Kentucky. It was such a blast to be able to go for the first time ever. It made me so grateful for my new job that allowed me to go so early in my tenure there and for my friends, most of whom agreed to go with me when I announced that I was GOING this year and wanted them to come with me. And they dealt with my incredibly weird affect while I was struggling with my insomnia, thank you friends! Unfortunately I got home and it got worse, but I'm hoping I have broken it now. 

I am DEFINITELY putting this on the calendar as an annual tradition. Even with some of my shopping decisions, I was way under budget for the trip and am excited to come back as often as I can. What an experience! 

Kentucky 2022 - Cross Country

We woke up fairly early on cross country day so that we could spend the entire day at the horse park. The four star went in the morning and then the five star started just after lunch. 

The classic shot

After declining Jen’s tailgating invitations for years, we finally got to go! We spent the morning there watching the four star from the tailgating spot while we enjoyed Jen’s amazing food. Legitimately it was the best food we had all weekend (we did cook for ourselves a few times, which was also very good, so that’s my advice). 

It was blogger central, which was fun! I finally got to meet some new bloggers after so many years of not meeting anyone in person. As expected, everyone was super nice. My insomnia made it really difficult to interact normally with other humans, but I tried! 

After an amazing lunch, we decided to go to the start (and end) of the course to try to watch every jump. It was kind an out and back course, so we were able to see the first and last jumps and zig zag between the tracks before we ended up at the head of the lake. 

Watching the four star from Jen's tailgating spot,
which I neglected to get a picture of

The jumps are HUGE, obviously, these horses are so incredible. Seeing it in person is other worldly at times, like what even is this place where the grass is green and the jumps are as large as a small house? 

We were lucky to not see anything too scary. The worst we saw was a horse landing a little hard on the ditch and wall and the rider popping off. Horse and rider were totally fine, just an unfortunate moment.

There was a really long hold out on course and we had no idea why. This was the challenge all day. I bet if we had been better at paying attention, we could have figured it out, but it was really hard to hear/pay attention to the announcer. So we were sitting at the Normandy bank wondering what was going on and the longer the hold was, the more nervous we were. Without being afraid of what was happening, it was honestly nice to just sit down and relax, but we were on edge worrying. 

Later on we found out that a horse had fallen in the water and had to be sedated and taken off course. No one knew anything else around us though. Only that afternoon when the day had ended did we finally figure out which horse it was and that the horse was going to be fine (we knew the rider was fine from earlier in the day), so that was good! Still really scary to be out on course and I can’t imagine what it would have been like to see it happen.

All of my pictures were from videos on my phone
if you can't tell lol

I was so impressed when the hold stopped and the horse finally came through our jump, what a jump to be held in front of! But whoever came through was amazing and just popped right through. And then we continued our walk! 

The coffin complex was absolutely amazing to watch, as was the sunken road. We finally saw Boyd Martin and Michael Jung come through when we were at the edge of the course. Seeing both of them up close was pretty cool, different styles of riders but both rode so seamlessly over the fences we saw them at. 

We ended up at the head of the lake watching the last few riders. We moved around a bit to make sure we got to see it from different angles. During that time, a rider ended up causing a jump to collapse, so that was interesting to see! We’d seen one earlier on the 4* course that was being stored collapsed and it’s really amazing technology. Not like I’ll ever jump a jump with frangible tech, but I still love that they’re working hard to make the sport safer. 

These open ramp jumps are pretty scary, yikes

At the end of the day, I was feeling so inspired. I’ve had a rough time with the dressage for the last few years and jumping has been a fun thing to do to take my mind off of it. I wondered whether this weekend would make me want to event more or make me shift my gears toward another sport where the jumps fall down. But after that weekend, I am very confident that I want to make my return to eventing. I sat down that evening and did some calculations on where I needed to get to in my career and how much I needed to save to buy my next horse, who I want to be an eventer. 

I love dressage and I always will. I want to continue to learn and take TC up through the levels. But I want to be in a sport where I don’t have such a sour taste. And for that, eventing is perfect. 

It’ll take me a little while to get to the point where I can buy a horse (since I’m going to want a hefty budget so I can buy something very safe and who is my very specific ride over fences), but I do want to switch disciplines. Or at least, add another discipline! So, two to three years from now, I’ll be in the market for something very specific and hopefully will be gearing up to run my first BN in fifteen years. 

Kentucky 2022 - Dressage

Oh man, I have been wanting to post these posts for this entire week! But work has been so busy. The two days right before I left and the three when I got back were absolute madhouse. I did get some exceptional food for Cinco De Mayo yesterday though and we have today off so I'm spending it with the horses of course. And setting up these posts!

Unfortunately, with work being so busy the couple days before and my insomnia returning with a vengeance last month, most of my weekend in Kentucky was spent in zombie mode. But luckily I took a lot of pictures, so I'm sure I can piece together what happened!

Thursday! L spent the dressage days
seeing thoroughbreds so it was just
the four of us for a couple days

My brother came to pick me up on Wednesday morning because he lives on the other side of the airport and the SO was in meetings all afternoon. It was fun to chat with him on the way to the airport (and tell him that his child is going to be obsessed with eventing one day) and then in no time, I was waiting outside the gate. I grabbed some food and moved myself up in the plane because my flight had been delayed and I was facing a short layover. 

When planning, it had turned out that Nicole and I had booked the same flight from DFW to Lexington, so we chose seats next to each other and she was able to hold the plane for a moment for me to get there! Both myself and my bag did make it to Lexington. 

Proof we made it: ponies were the
first thing we saw when we landed

The coolest part of all of this was landing in Lexington and seeing how horse centric the city is. The Bay Area is essentially the opposite of that, with most of my coworkers being shocked that there are horses anywhere near us. There were advertisements for thoroughbred studs and farms, tons of horse statues and pictures, and signs that said Equine something or other all over the place. 

We got a ride from a very Kentuckian Lyft driver to our AirBnb and met up with L there. Our other friends were driving in from Louisville and by 1am, there were six of us in our cute and quirky AirBnb! 

Insane to see it all in person!

Wednesday night I did sleep better, but that isn't saying much and that plus the jet lag meant that I was an absolute zombie the entire day on Thursday. I have vague memories of wandering around the horse park and also of Peony chatting excitedly with Amanda and Hillary while I tried to stay conscious and took in just enough to realize that I came across as a huge weirdo. Great!

Luckily we didn’t have anything we *had* to do on Thursday, so we hung out in the morning, made some breakfast, and then made our way to the horse park. 

 

Of course we had to go see this guy

I’ve never been to the horse park, but I’ve heard it’s incredible and I can confirm that it’s incredible. We didn’t have seats for dressage on Thursday, so we kind of watched here and there but spent most of the time wandering around shopping. There were tons of tents set up with lots of brands I’d only heard of. 

My goal for the trip was to find a helmet for myself and stirrups for my niece. I want her in safety stirrups since she's a little daredevil (she is already cantering with me double at 2 years old lol her favorite words are "MORE FAST AUNT MIMI") and will probably fall off a lot, but I want to find the tiniest ones I can because she's in like, the 14th percentile in human size and will probably stay that way since her mom is so tiny. Neither of those I ended up finding, oh well. If anyone has any non-peacock safety stirrup recommendations for a tiny person, let me know. I want her to start riding on her own later this summer because my legs are tired from nudging the pony along. 

I came close to buying a OneK but their medium is just the tiniest bit too tight on my head. I love how you can change up the plates though so I was very close to just buying it and seeing if it'd break in a bit. It would have been so fun to have different plates for my different horse sports! The best fit came from a Charles Owen AYR8 Plus, but that’s a $520 helmet and it was not on sale, so not worth buying just to have to bring it home. But it was good to know that it fits, so when I do go to buy a helmet, I will just buy that one.

I did buy a jump strap though!

Thursday night, we ended up ordering food for pick up from a local restaurant, and that, plus the lunch earlier that day which was supposed to be Mediterranean but they offered us BBQ for a sauce, started us off realizing that Kentucky’s food is… it’s fine. It's edible and it's fine. 

On Friday, we did have seats, so we slept in and then headed over to the horse park to watch dressage for real. Thanks to Nicole, we could see the court easily, unobstructed by pillars! We were also protected from the elements, although it was sunny all weekend. 

Seats, courtesy of Nicole, thank you Nicole!!

We saw some of the bigger names go and I was generally really impressed with the dressage. The test looks fun and flows well, with some challenging parts, such as going from an extended canter to a stretchy canter circle (which I do really like, it used to be part of Second level and putting it after an extended canter, amazing, I love it). I definitely want to ride it on TC when we get back to that point. 

Obviously Michael Jung was in first place after dressage, it was a beautiful test. Boyd’s test was also really fabulous to see in person and he did this amazing counter canter circle to come up centerline which I was *obsessed* with, I'm definitely using that when TC and I get to Fourth level. What a brilliant way to enter the court to guarantee you're straight AND that your horse isn't going to go do a line of tempis up the centerline (erm, Rico and I got a lot of 5s on centerlines). Not all show facilities will allow for this around here, but I am determined to enter in counter canter from now on when I can.

There were some less well known riders (I mean, to me most riders are less well known so don't take my word for it) who put in really quality tests with correct basics. No one is perfect of course, but the quality of the basics were seen in the quality of the extensions, stretchy canter, and rein backs, and there were a lot of great basics. 

INSANE and very well deserved score

Smartpak ran a course walk with Boyd Martin, so we did end up going on that and getting to see some of the course. To someone who is jumping solidly BN right now, the jumps looked HUGE. It was cool to hear what he thought about each of the harder parts of the course though. I really like the technical aspect of the sport! 

On Friday, we ended up going out to dinner and continuing our uninspiring tour of Kentucky’s food scene. We did get really good ice cream though! I’ll give Kentucky that, they do unhealthy food really well, which I can definitely appreciate. I think it was that evening that we decided to cook for ourselves from then on. 

Friday night we decided to go to bed relatively early to get up early for cross country day!

WW: Just Like the Saddle Club

We didn't get any pictures of all of us this weekend but we still got some great pictures. I highly recommend having a pony sleepover with your amazing friends. 

Amazing sunset on our first night there

Peony conquering the wiggliest Flounder

L on Speedy taking a video of Nicole on Dante

Playing on the trail course!

Once again, if you horse knows how
to smile I will force them to and take
pictures of them

Trail ride!!

Peony braided my pony! Also look how good his
body is looking these days! He's downright slim
(note: pony's ribs are still very well covered)

Dante on the trail course

Pony Camp

With L up in the bay for a month and Nicole's new pony still nearby, we opted to try to have an ACTUAL PONY SLEEPOVER WITH PONIES and it actually worked out. It was hit or miss for a while because of the necessity for it to not be raining. But last weekend, we (L, Nicole, Kate, Peony, and I) rented an Airbnb together near Kate's barn and we hung out for the weekend!

The sunset on the first night was beautiful

On Friday, Nicole left her MIL's place a few hours east of us and headed to L's barn to pick up Dante. Meanwhile, Peony drove down from her house a few hours north of us. And Kate and I drove our normal 40ish minute commute. We all converged at Kate's barn in the mid afternoon. After some excited greetings, we tacked up to ride! Peony rode one of Kate's client's super sweet horses, I rode Flounder, L rode Dante, and Nicole rode Speedy. And Kate was teaching in the ring we were riding in. 

It was super fun to just ride around a bit together! I played with Flounder's dressage moves, Peony got to ride a horse who was not Spot, L got to school Dante over some strange jumps, and we all got to see Speedy go for the first time. After some riding, we swapped horses! L hunterfied the horse Peony was riding, Peony got to experience the wiggliness that is Flounder, I got to play with Speedy, and Nicole got to jump Dante, among many other switches. 

We then went for a wander around the polo field, leading me to get the most amazing video I've ever taken: L trotted and cantered Dante around on the field in the sunset and it was beautiful. It's on her IG if you want to see it! You can probably imagine what it looks like given what the sunset looks like. 

But then Dante decided to become a hill horse and lost a shoe so he just hung out the rest of the weekend. 

That night, Kate's SO brought us Thai food (and picked up Kate's dogs who we got to hang out with until then) and then we sat on the couches at the AirBnb and talked about horses until I think about 1am. It was a super fun day and I always love our conversations when we are all together. 

Kate's barn has a bunch of ducks! 

Saturday morning we got up, got coffee, and headed to the barn. Our plan was to hang out in the morning while Kate taught some lessons and then go on a trail ride! I had to go get my pony from the ranch, so Peony and I headed over there to do that. 

I hitched in record time and then we were on the road! Sunny was good to haul and seemed excited to be somewhere different (he's been on this trail once before). The trail ride was super fun, although the pony did get over threshold and so I had to dismount and help him on the ground. When I got back on, he was much happier. 

Definitely something to keep in mind moving forward with him. I think with all the work we're doing, he's feeling less shut down, but now underneath it all, there's some anxiety, specifically about other horses. I'll be exploring this with Kate a bit this year. I want him to feel relaxed on a group trail ride, he deserves to work through his anxiety and be a happier, healthier pony. 

Trail ride!

L came back with me to the ranch to unload and my brother, SIL, and niece were there to drop some things off! My niece helped me put away the pony. Then my brother and SIL pulled me aside to let me know that they were having another girl (due in July). My niece has no idea what's in store for her: sharing her pony (who she just started referring to as MAH, which is how she lets us know what is hers). 

We headed out to an Indian pizza place and picked up dinner, then went to the barn to help Kate, Nicole, and Peony finish up. We got back to the AirBnb relatively early (for horse people at least lol) and hung out. 

L made the mistake of showing us her journal that night. She has a lot of lists in there and one of the exercises was to list everything she was good at (horse edition). She only had NINE things written down and most of them were duplicates of each other. So we all dished out some good, old fashioned mild to moderate bullying and got her to finish the list with 37 things she was good at. 

I will sit over you and yell at you
to write nice things about yourself
in your own journal, be warned.

Sunday morning, Peony headed home (although promised to come down to ride with Kate and I more often) and the rest of us went to the barn for one last fun day! Kate and L worked with Dante in hand and then Kate rode Speedy and taught Nicole. Kate then taught some lessons. I played with a barn cat and talked to some of Kate's clients, I love not being a trainer anymore (except for some clinics and remote lessons). 

Soon, we all had to get going. Nicole and L hit the road with the ponies and I headed out to get TC out and take the pony down the road and back. 

Such a fun weekend!

It was SUCH a fun weekend. I feel so unbelievably lucky to have such amazing friends and for this weekend to work out so perfectly (schedule and weather wise). We definitely need to do more things like this as a group and we talked about making this (minus ponies since it was just a fun coincidence that L and Nicole's horses were nearby) an annual thing. 

Can't wait for more adventures with my favorite people!

Post Pandemic Tacos and Ponies

This last weekend I got on a plane for the first time since January 2020! It was definitely a weird experience, but I was only on the plane for an hour because I went to visit L in San Diego! I hadn’t been down to see her since her wedding TWO YEARS AGO, it felt like way too long. 

My welcoming crew at the barn

I flew down Friday at 2:30 and she came to pick me up around 4. One of my favorite things about visiting horse friends is that they frequently pick me up from the airport and take me straight to the barn, and that’s what we did! We went to go see Dante and turn him out to roll. I hadn’t seen L’s new barn yet (and it’s not even that new at this point lol) so I got a quick tour of both the barn she’s currently at and the one next door that she used to be at. It’s such a nice barn! The arenas had good footing and the turnouts were super fancy (and TC proof, there was hot wire between the boards lol I will forever be obsessed with checking if fencing is TC proof). 

After playing with Dante and me making him smile until he was annoyed with me, we headed home to go get tacos. When I told L what I wanted to do this weekend, it was very simple: horses and tacos. I haven’t had really good tacos in a very long time, we have one or two restaurants up here that come close to the quality of tacos you can get in San Diego, but honestly nothing compares. We walked down with T and each got a taco and shared nachos. 

I already miss the food SO much

That evening L had a grad school zoom which T and I both attended, it was super fun but I got distracted by an equine physical therapy book that L showed me. I immediately ordered it because it went into specific detail on the muscles of the horse and what the development of each muscle can tell you about how your horse works. For example, the longitimus dorsi is the back muscle most commonly affected by saddle fit and the thoracic sling is what dictates whether the horse has a dip in front of the withers, not the cervical trapezius as I thought before. I definitely want to read this book when it comes to me and I’ll share what I find out. 

We definitely stayed up too late because we got to talking about a video game I couldn’t beat that I happened to have there with me and T offered to beat it for me (there’s way more to do after you beat it but I stopped playing it last year because my SO told me that he didn’t want to beat it for me and I think he thought that’d just motivate me to try harder and it did not). We did finally go to sleep though!

My horse was smaller than Dante, which I
appreciated lol

The next morning, we walked to get breakfast at a really delicious breakfast place. I don’t know why but I was super hungry on this trip, probably just being at a place with amazing food and finally getting to visit friends? I dunno, but I devoured my breakfast. 

After that, L and I were off to the barn again to take a lesson! Both of us actually! I had asked L if her trainer had lesson horses and if I could take a lesson and she said yes and signed us up for a semi private lesson. Because Dante is doing smaller confidence building work, he is jumping the same height I’ve been jumping on Flounder so it worked out perfectly. I’ll talk more specifically about the lesson tomorrow but it was AMAZING, I learned a ton and had so much fun. 

We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some supplies for the evening because we had a fire in the backyard with some friends, one of them being Carrie! We laughed that I’d escaped the falling ash in the bay to then just inhale a bunch of smoke from the fire when it’d blow at me, but it was worth it. We ordered pizza and ate chips and guacamole. L had picked up a pie from the store, which was so good I honestly looked into having one delivered to my house this week (and even texted the SO “I’m considering ordering us a pie” and he wrote back “wat?”) but the shipping was as much as the pie itself. Oh well. Carrie also made a chocolate mochi cake with peanut butter frosting which was AMAZING and has inspired me to eat more mochi in general. 

Thule dog is the most adorable

The next morning, we had pie for breakfast and then headed out to the barn! L had asked me to bring all my fun rider aids and I did! I brought my Equicube, my rider bands, and the Mary Wanless rider belt. 

You may wonder, did I get stopped by TSA for any of this stuff and the answer is yes I did. The Equicube must have looked like something I could smuggle stuff in because the poor TSA man pulled it out and looked at it with the most hilariously confused facial expression. He looked back at me, back at the cube, turned to see if any other agents might be able to explain this to him, then he took out a wand thing to rub all over it, shrugged to himself, and put it back. I figured it was better to just stay quiet than to go into grave detail about what the cube was and how it worked. 

We took Dante out and L warmed him up and then I gave her the rider aids one by one. I ended up leaving the Equicube with L because it was so helpful to her and we conspired to see if she could have her trainer use it in lessons and maybe buy one for the barn so she could use it. Fingers crossed!

I then got a turn on Dante and WOW he is so grown up now! I haven't ridden him since like... 2017? 2018? Because I saw L twice in 2019, once for her horsey bachelorette party when I had mono (so couldn't ride) and once for her wedding (we were too busy to ride). L has done such a fabulous job with him, he felt really good. 

Dante, you better like jumping or I'll
make you into a dressage horse
muahahaha

After riding, we came back home and then too soon, we were heading out to drop me off at the airport to fly home. The SO came to get me and I pretty much immediately went to bed and slept ten hours lol!

I forgot how much I adore visiting my friends. Things have obviously been tough with TC’s continued muscle issues this year and it was so nice to both get away from the stress of that and to have L to talk to about it. She gave me a lot of really good ideas and I walked away feeling a bit more hopeful.

I had a super ride on him yesterday and I have a lesson with local trainer today, then tomorrow he gets his teeth done. 

Two Gray Weirdos Hit the Trail

As of writing this (Friday afternoon), we are officially on lock down, mostly. My full time job is all remote and I've stopped doing everything except riding and teaching and running only the most essential of errands.

The most essential errand

Boyfriend and I stocked up on food for a few weeks and have hunkered down. He's probably more stressed than I am just because he doesn't get to leave the house every day and go to the barn like I do. The barn has been such a nice place to be at, with it feeling basically completely normal and me begin able to go in the middle of the day because my job is now fully remote.

One of the things that I immediately wanted to do with more free time was go on a trail ride with Kate and her new horse! TC hasn't been ridden much with friends on the trail since he was a baby being babysat, and it's something that I've wanted to start doing more regularly. But I had no idea what he'd be like! Kate is the perfect balance of ballsy and tactful, so she was going to handle her shit well if TC didn't.

But I had nothing to worry about, TC was absolutely foot perfect and we had SO MUCH FUN! We will definitely be trail riding every chance we can get.

TC looking sleepy

When we got there, we headed straight out to the smaller loop, the one I typically do alone. TC met BGT (Kate's new horse is unnamed, go help her name him on her blog!) and immediately wanted to bite him and BGT didn't care about TC very much. BGT decided to prance for the first bit of the trail and we laughed because he isn't all that fit so he'd tire himself out pretty quickly.

It was like TC when he was a baby, nonstop prancing until he exhausted himself. TC would sulk after that though (mom why do we have to climb the hillllll I have no energy because I made bad life choices). Sure enough, when we started climbing, BGT decided to walk.

The whole trail was completely uneventful, although BGT did get animated any time he had to cross anything that he thought looked weird, like the bridge (he led over it!) and some rocks. I a bit thought that TC would kind of default to whatever BGT wanted to do because he's a submissive little weirdo that just wants his friends to think he's cool. No worries though, even when BGT was spooking at cows and darting off the path, TC just looked at him like he was the weirdo and marched confidently by.

TC, could you look any less like a dressage horse?

They were so cute together too, they had a lot of banter between them. When TC was behind, all he wanted to do was chew on BGT's butt, which, when he'd go for it, we'd see BGT TOTALLY egging him on with his mischievous facial expression. When BGT was behind, all he wanted to do was shove his face up TC's butt, which TC took as a sign that he wanted to play, so he'd walk slower and slower and slower, wedging BGT's face even further up his butt and TC's head would get higher and higher as he glanced back at him like YOU LIKE BUTTS? ME TOO!

My favorite part by far was when they saw a bird. TC saw the bird and I felt him get all high-electron-y for a second and I touched one rein and he settled, because TC is a good boy and doesn't attack birds anymore. But then there goes BGT dragging Kate toward the bird with his neck arched, ready to attack. I think that's when they realized they were bros for life.

Bonding over their mutual hatred of birds

It was SUCH a fun day! I'm so looking forward to the next one. In a time when we're all so unsure of everything, it was great to get away from it all and enjoy the great outdoors on our amazing gray ponies.

All Together Now

A week ago on Thursday afternoon I was waffling. One of the things that has sucked about having mono was all the things I missed. I missed riding my horse, I missed the Veterans Center end of year party at work, I missed several riding lessons and clinics I had wanted to do, I missed going to the gym...

I was about to miss yet another thing, something really important. So Thursday afternoon I was trying to decide whether I could be at the barn the next morning at 7am to get in the car with Kate and Nicole, to drive all the way down to San Diego to meet up with Peony, and to spend the entire weekend crashing at L's house.

I ended up deciding that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity (I can be dramatic) and I had to go, even if it risked me relapsing. So I went. And I haven't relapsed. Good life choices.

How my food was labeled

My hazardous water cup

We went mostly to steal this guy but we forgot
the horse trailer, damnit

I love them all so much it's kind of ridiculous. Peony, Nicole, L, Kate

The story behind this trip was that unfortunately, the four of us could not make L's actual bachelorette party, which was the weekend before this one. For some reason, it was the perfect storm where literally none of us could go (well, my plans obviously changed due to illness but I still couldn't go). The four of us weren't too pleased with missing out on spending time with L all together before her wedding, so we started throwing around the idea of getting ourselves down to her to throw her invade her house with a low key horse themed bachelorette party.

A poll to decide on dates, coordinating with T to sneakily make sure that L was free that weekend, and then an invitation that L opened to announce that we would be moving in with her for the weekend... and it was set!

Then I got mono... but then I recovered! Well, mostly. I made sure everyone involved was okay with me being around, doused myself with hand sanitizer on the regular all weekend, and didn't touch any food (I got to make everyone serve me food but then I also had to do my own dishes). Other than not being able to hug everyone as much as I would have liked, it worked out so well!

On our way!! Me, Nicole, Kate

The weekend started on Friday morning for me. Kate had picked up Nicole on Thursday night (it worked out better for her to fly to the bay and drive down with us vs flying straight down) and they met me at the barn on Friday morning. I fed TC and then we were on the road!

I can be in a car for what feels like years at a time without getting bored or what not, but wow does 9 hours go by fast when you're in the car with amazing horse friends. I used my hot spot to work on the way down and back (and the work I had saved for both travel days was easy to do while distracted). I also spent a good amount of time trying to find a corgi balloon to pick up on the way. Eventually Nicole suggested we just order one on Amazon and have it delivered to a locker near L's house. Nicole is my most educated friend and it shows a lot of the time.

Half of Dante's fan club

Dante wanted to do my hair, thanks!

Peony was the first to arrive and L picked her up from the airport. They decided to go to the barn to visit Dante, and Peony encouraged L to ride him even though we were set to arrive at her house that night. Peony is amazing and figured out the address to the barn AND the gate code, so we managed to surprise L by showing up at the barn! Speaking of, L's new barn is amazing! We wandered around and then settled in to watch L school Dante.

Holy shit guys, I saw this horse in August 2018 (I even got to ride him!) and he is a COMPLETELY different horse now less than a year later, I'm so impressed. He's so soft over his topline and so much more supple. I wish I could have sat on him this last weekend just to feel the difference, but I was still restricted on riding. Nicole and Kate got to sit on him though, and we had a blast watching them put Dante through his (giant) paces too.

From there, we drove home and then ran to the store to grab dessert and a few supplies for dinner, then went back to L's house to make dinner and sit around talking about ponies. That obviously took us all evening and we went to bed ready to get going the next morning.

Peonies are expensive

Saturday morning we got up and ate a delicious breakfast casserole that L made (L can move back to the bay now so I can invite myself over all the time and eat her cooking) before heading out to the beach wearing our matching shirts (shout out to Peony for arranging those)!

There was a mini horse extravaganza planned and so we got to spend time with some adorable minis on the beach. There were minis rolling in the sand, minis jumping tiny mini jumps, minis playing in the ocean... it was amazing. We were very clearly horse people and made fast friends with all the minis, talking to the owners, scratching all the ponies, and admiring the trailers (some of them were mini sized! And we saw someone loading minis in the back of a... mini van, which makes sense).

Beach! Nicole, Kate, L, Peony, me!

Look at this jumpy pony!

So, last time L, Peony, and I were together in
SD, apparently Peony almost ate L and I because
we can go way longer than she can without food.
This time she came prepared hahahaha

Hanging out at the barn! 

From there, we went back to the barn to turn Dante out and hang out for a bit. Then. THEN. We went to get tacos at the best taco place ever. I ate two tacos and had some nachos! It was delicious. And it set us up very nicely for our plans that night, which were to go to some bars.

Unfortunately my two mono-related limitations for the weekend were that I couldn't ride (boooo) and that I couldn't drink (b... well it doesn't affect me much honestly, I don't drink very often). That was unfortunate because the bars we went to had the COOLEST drinks! The first bar was hidden behind a restaurant I think... We walked through a kitchen and back through a hidden door to this amazing space. I got a special non-alcoholic drink that was really delicious.

The second bar was really cool too, it was in a basement and was another speakeasy type place, hard to see from the outside. I didn't order anything there just because I was kind of sugared-out and all the drinks I wanted to order without alcohol just felt like me asking for a cup of sugar with some water over it. So we just hung out and chatted while I contemplated saying "fuck it all" and sneezing in someone's drink so I could steal it. I resisted.

We got back to the house early and hung out for a bit before going to the dive bar around the corner. I've been to that bar once and it's always entertaining. What was amazing about this time was learning so much about Peony... Peony is AMAZING at pool. Holy shit. We all played a very chillaxed game of pool and Peony killed it. Craziness!

T, Kate, and L! Also lots of skulls

Nicole and I! If I look tired it's because I HAVE
MONO OKAY

Peony demonstrating the secret door

L and Peony at the second bar

Ready to go out! Nicole, Peony, L

Sunday morning, Peony and I got up early and went on an adventure. We hadn't been able to grab our surprise corgi balloon the day before, so I messaged her (the only person I was pretty sure would be up and on their phone that early) to see if she wanted to come with me to go get it. We grabbed it and then realized that it obviously didn't come blown up.... so we walked to the grocery store to get it done! We felt bad just having them blow it up without buying another balloon, so we got a giant unicorn balloon too.

The look on L's face when she walked out and saw the balloons was hilarious. And she has a corgi now! It's really well trained and doesn't ever need to be fed, walked, or picked up after.

After hanging out for a bit in the morning, we got up and headed out to L's lesson. It was so cool to see them jump and I got to play with my phone's burst mode to grab some good (for a phone and from far away) pictures of them hopping over some good sized fences! Dante looks so much more confident, coordinated, and adjustable over the fences. It's been so cool to see them progress.

Feeding carrots to the resident mini at the barn

Jumps!

Peony excited to hang out with Dante!

We grabbed lunch at a delicious Thai place near the house before piling in two cars and going to the Birch Aquarium at UC San Diego. First, let me just say that I'm glad I didn't go there for grad school (I wanted to apply to a PhD program there but the professor I wanted to work with wasn't taking people that year ugh) because I would not have been able to pay attention, it was beautiful!

On the way, we had grabbed our Dog Bingo cards. L had the idea when we chatted about this weekend and I took it upon myself to try to make them. The drive over the aquarium was so much fun as we would be chatting and then randomly someone would be like "LOOK A DOG WHAT KIND OF DOG IS THAT LOOK!" and we'd go through our cards.

L is way more artistic than I am, so I told her I was going to send her the raw files so she can make them actually nice, there was talk of putting them online to sell and using the money to fund vacations for ourselves. Or you know, we could just play more Dog Bingo, it's so fun!

Dog Bingo!

Sea horse! 

The aquarium itself was amazing. I am a huge museum/aquarium type person, I love learning new things and wandering around places like that. They had a sea horse exhibit (see the theme for the weekend?) so we saw that as well as sharks, a giant sea turtle, eels, an octopus, crabs, and all kinds of fish. It was so cool to see all the animals, and we even got to go to the touch tanks and poke some sea cucumbers, anemones, and sea stars. There were some fish in there (couldn't touch them though) that were having so much fun as well.

Sunday night, Carey came over to hang out. We spent most of the night talking about judgmental dogs, watching the riding portion of Olympic Pentathalon (it's bad but look it up and enjoy), and eating amazing dessert.

It was over so quickly and Monday morning, Kate, Nicole, and I got up early and headed home. The drive back again went by super quickly and before we knew it, the whirlwind weekend was all over.

Jelly fish! 

I can't express how much fun this weekend was! I love these people so much and we so rarely get to spend time with all of us together (last time was at the Mary clinic in February 2019 and the time before that was Nicole's wedding in April 2018). When we do get together, it's like we pick up right where we left off and it's an absolute blast always.

I can't believe that without this blog, I wouldn't have all these freaking amazing people in my life. How did I ever live without them?