Buddy

Having Jack has made me nostalgic about my first horse love, Buddy. He was (okay, is... he's still alive!) an Appendix Quarter horse who I completely adored! I took lessons on him and leased him from eighth grade until freshman year of college. He liked to buck, so one of his nicknames was "Bucking Buddy." His registered name is Ima Jaguar Too.

Here are two pictures that were taken for my senior pictures. The first one is one of the few times in my life that I have ever been on a horse without a helmet! He was feeling wild on this day, so that was pretty brave of me ;-)


Oh Buddy, you are so cute! If I could keep him in my backyard, I would go get him and drive him here all the way from Minnesota. It's hard to think about how he may be doing right now, since I don't know, but I have tons of memories that will last forever!

Go Wild!

Last Saturday Megan, Aaron, Dave, and I drove up to Vancouver, B.C. to see the Minnesota Wild play the Vancouver Canucks. None of us had ever been up to Vancouver before, so it was a fun adventure. We of course had to show our passports at the border on the way in and out of Canada. The boarder patrol agents were very serious. That's a good thing, I guess. I want them to take their job seriously, but it was a little intimidating!

We were decked out in Wild gear for the game and stuck out because Vancouver's colors are royal blue and kelly green compared to our Christmasy colors of red and hunter green.

We had a good view from our seats at the end of the arena. Too bad we never got to see the Wild score any goals! They usually do pretty well, but it was a disappointing game for us. We lost 2-0.

I thought Minnesota fans were hockey crazy but the Canuck fans were intense! We got a lot of crap on the way out to our car. I wish the game had been closer, but we had a good time and got to see a new city. I was surprised how foreign Canada felt. People joke that it's just like America, but I definitely didn't think that it did! Their accents alone were worth the trip. They were so cute, eh?

I love getting to do stuff like this with my sister! It's so fun that the four of us like hanging out together and have similar interests so we can all have fun experiences like this :-)

Tuckered Out

Dylan plays really hard and sleeps really hard. I just love this dog!

Jumping Video

It finally worked! I had to reformat the video with my movie maker software. I'm not sure why, but I'm glad I tried it!

We were working on rhythm, not fence height. Jack did not rush at the fences at all like he used to! It was a great lesson.

Jumping Lesson

During the fall and winter, Anne has group jumping lessons for her students on Sundays. This Sunday was the first one that I was able to attend. It was a big group- eight riders of varying skill level. Jack and I have come a long way from last winter, and it is always fun to cheer everyone else on as we do the courses Anne sets up.

The day started out pouring rain, so I wasn't sure how fun it would be to jump outside. Fortunately the sun came out right before we started, but the clouds rolled in at the end of the lesson and we got SOAKED!

Here's most of the group basking in the sun. I just love everyone at Stoneybrook!


My sister, Megan, took some videos of me and Jack. It is so nice to have an audience ;-) I will have to post one of our best rounds later. Blogger is being uncooperative right now. Jack did not pull once on me like he used to. I have gotten much better about relaxing my arms and not giving him as much resistance to lean on. We had a couple jumps that were so smooth. During the lesson I said, "When everything comes together, it's like magic!" Dave took this picture of me and Jack.



Unfortunately on top of being soaked at the end of the lesson, Jack dumped me in a mud puddle on the way back up to the barn! I think it was a combination of a huge puddle in front of the gate and the really loud drumming of rain on the barn roof that spooked him. He flew off to the right, and I flew off to the left! It's funny that I didn't fall off while jumping, but fell off on the way back to the barn! Oh well, I got a good reminder for why you can't ever get lazy when you're on a horse!