Finally!!!

Black Apple Doll

I found this project at one of my favorite blogs, homemade by jill. The instructions and pattern are posted at Martha Stewart's page.



It was a pretty fast project, and I would like to make more! It will be fun to try different fabrics and color combinations.

Baby Shower Invitations

My friend, Stacy, is having a baby in December and I am throwing a baby shower for all of our barn friends. Here is the invitation I designed. It took a long time to get my idea on paper, but I love it!

Words Are Too Hard

See my pictures instead!

Go here for pictures from Michelle's wedding, a killer shot of the Old Capital and the Rockford AirFest!

Name That Landmark

Erin and Paul's Wedding Edition:

Hint - photos are in order from Twin Cities to Seattle:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dlilient/NameThatLandmark#

Bridal Shower Invitations

My sister Erin's bridal shower is on Saturday. Megan and I made invitations a few weeks ago, and they turned out so cute! Erin's wedding color is green, so we chose green and pink to be the shower colors for a bit of fun. It took us awhile to come up with an idea, but we ended up finding a cute idea in a book about making cards.

Here's the "flock" of birds ready to go.

Here's a close up of the outside. Megan found the pink patterned paper, and it was the basis for our inspiration. I love it!
We found several options for wording a shower invitation online, but this one was our favorite. It seemed to fit the feel of the card the best.

I can't wait to fly home on Friday and see all our relatives at the shower!

Get My Hit count Up!

Spread the word - Dave's got another photo accepted (A ridiculously hard and agonizing endeavor) on Airliners.net: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1560659/L/

My Handsome Boy

Dave took this picture while we were out schooling at Aspen Farm. It shows how happy Jack is out on a cross country course!

New Window Treatments

We finally finished this project today when we hung the cornice in our bedroom. It's totally over engineered, but I wanted to make sure it lasts.

Our bedroom


Guest bath

The creative director at the back door

Megan's Birthday Party

Historic Downtown Poulsbo

The Birthday Girl

Briarwood Pony Club One Day Event

On Saturday, May 30 Jack and I went to the Briarwood One Day down at NWEC in Rainier, WA. It was my first time going Beginner Novice, and it was a blast!

I was the most nervous about our dressage test. Jack's dressage has come a long way in the last year, but we still don't have much experience actually doing a test in a show. No matter how well you school, putting in a decent test at a show is hard! However, Jack warmed up really nice and relaxed, and we had our best test ever!

It was a hot day, somewhere in the 80's, so I was a little concerned about Jack having enough down time between events. He got a half hour or so in his stall to drink water and relax before we tacked up for stadium. I only did a few warm up fences before going into the ring because he felt ready to go. Unfortunately I made a bad approach to our first fence, so we knocked down a rail. But I realized my mistake, put my leg on, and came in straight to the rest of the fences. Jack got all his distances and it was so much fun!

We had a little longer after stadium, maybe about 40 minutes. Jack snoozed in his stall while I changed and got ready for cross country. We headed over to the warm up area where they had an actual cross country jump for warming up in addition to the standard X, vertical, and oxer. Since we had just jumped and it was hot, I didn't want to do too much to wear Jack out. We did just the crossrail from both leads and then the XC ramp from both directions. Jack felt completely ready and I could tell he was excited. As soon as we crossed the start line, Jack was on! We went faster than I have gone when we have schooled cross country. It was amazing! Jack jumped everything, and was constantly looking for the next fence.

I should have balanced him back before a few fences where he took off long, but the fences were so small, he was easily galloping over them. I was not worried at all, and it was so fun to just be in the gallop rhythm and fly over the fences!

I had such a great time with Jack and with all of my friends at the show! We are going to our first recognized event at our next show. We'll be going Beginner Novice at the Whidbey Island Pony Club Horse Trial in July. I can't wait!

Photo updates

For a photo album of Megan's Birthday party, click here.
And here for the highlights from a BBQ we attended where half the guest list were dogs.

Megan's Birthday Cake

Megan's birthday was on Saturday, so I baked her a cake. It was my first time using fondant, so I tried something simple, but I love how it turned out!



Here's the birthday girl. I can't believe my little sister is 25!


The cake was good and the buttercream that I used under the fondant was delicious. But we all agreed... fondant tastes pretty gross. Pretty to look at, though!

Area VII Adult Riders' Camp

Last weekend, April 30 through May 3, I attended USEA Area VII's Adult Rider's Camp. It was a weekend full of lessons with 5 different trainers from around the country. I had two dressage lessons, two cross country lessons, and one stadium jumping lesson. I rode with Kyle Carter, from the Canadian Olympic team, Steuart Pittman a well known US eventer, and Jonathan Elliot who owns Aspen Farms. The camp was held at Aspen, and it was beautiful!

Jack was a good boy all weekend. He got a little crazy for our first dressage lesson with Steuart. The dressage arenas were secluded from the rest of the jumping and cross country areas, so Jack felt very alone and upset. He did a little bucking, too, when we were asking him to be round at the canter! Steuart said he was "quite fancy" though, and said my position was good, so I took that as a compliment!

He apparently worked out all his frustration, because our following stadium lesson was a blast. Jon said that Jack had a great gallop, and we just rocked every fence. Jack did everything perfectly and I felt like my position was really solid.

Our first cross country lesson with Kyle started in sun, and ended in pouring rain! It absolutely dumped buckets of sideways rain on us. Jack was mad that we kept working in the rain, and did some more bucking. Once the rain let up, though, we happily galloped through the water and jumped in and out of it over a small jump.

Can you tell how wet we are? Not a dry spot on us, and my navy vest looks black!

The next day's lesson with Jonathan was much nicer. Jack was amazing! We got to practice galloping up and down hills. We both were having a lot of fun!

We got to do the ditch a lot, and I really learned a lot from Jon about how to ride it in a more balanced position. Jack never hesitated, and sometimes jumped really big over the ditch!

This log was fun to gallop up a steep hill, jump, and gallop down a long gradual hill afterwards. It was harder to jump the other way, going down the steep hill, but was good practice. I love Jack's face in this picture. So cute!

Here we are with our friends Sharon and Simon. Jack and Simon are travelling buddies. We rode down in Sharon's trailer and spent time with them all weekend. We had the best time in our cross country lesson together. We were proud of our non-ditchy horses since Jack and Simon did so well.

Jack was very tired by our last dressage lesson with Kyle, but that's okay. We had a great weekend and it was great to be successful in a new setting and with different instructors. It will be fun to apply some of the things we learned and also have new things to work on with Anne at home.

Schooling at NWEC

Anne took six of us schooling at Northwest Equestrian Center on Saturday. We had a lot of fun and didn't get rained on at all. What a miracle! It's less than a month away from Adult Rider's Camp for me and just about a month away from the NWEC Mother's Day Event for some of the other girls, so we have been anxious to get in our first schooling session of the year.

I was a bit nervous, but Jack was amazing! He was his usual solid self, although he did run out at a particularly scary log that had daylight underneath it. Everything else was no problem and he had a nice steady gallop rhythm the whole time. He's showing great form over this Novice ramp.

Jack is definitely a more excited and happy horse this past year. His expression in this picture gives him away! "You want to jump that log? Awesome, let's go!"

We practiced water, a ditch, lots of ramps, logs, a big bench, and a few coops. I thought most of them were Beginner Novice fences, but when we were untacking Anne said, "Heidi, you know most of those fences were Novice fences, right?" My eyes got really big, "Are you serious? Yeah!" I want to show Beginner Novice this year, so it's a huge boost to my confidence that we can already do Novice obstacles!


Click here to view the entire album. Dave did a fantastic job! He took a lot of pictures of me and all of our barn friends, too.

Mom and Dad Visit

My mom and dad came to visit for a long weekend. They had absolutely perfect timing on the Seattle spring weather! It was upper 60's or low 70's and sunny the whole time they were here. It felt like summer!

We did some shopping for Megan and Aaron's new apartment, watched movies, barbecued, played in the yard with the dogs, played outside games, did some yard work, and watched movies. It was fun to all spend time together.

Here's a picture from our day trip up to Anacortes. We ate lunch in the historic downtown and then went to the visitor center. The guide there told us about Washington Park out on the western point of the island. It was beautiful- nice trails, good beach access, and we saw a seal!

Dave and I definitely want to come back to this park, and I want to bring the dogs next time! We have more pictures that will hopefully be posted soon. We have both been busy and not had time to blog lately!

Baby Molly

Dylan

New Jump Panels!

My friend Kim texted me last week to say she wanted to work on a new project for our trainer, Anne. I love doing anything artsy, so I was definitely in! We primed the wood last Wednesday, then on Thursday, Kim, our friend Alex, and I designed and painted four different designs. We made two panels but did a did a different design on each side.

The diamond panel was inspired by Kim's daughter Macy's cross country helmet cover. I love how bright the colors are and the diamonds turned out perfect!
The other side of the diamonds is a chevron pattern.

The green and white checkerboard pattern seemed like a simple idea. But it is really busy and much scarier than we expected. The first day the panels were up was a Pony Club lesson day. One of the ponies stopped at this side of the panel but went over all the others. Then yesterday in my lesson, I had my first run out EVER on Jack coming up to this jump!! He looked and was wiggly to all the other sides, and I never would have expected that from him. He usually jumps anything! I guess we did our job!

Here's Macy, Kim, and me with our masterpiece, the eventing panel. I traced images of cross country, dressage, and stadium onto the panel and then we filled in the lines with teeny tiny brushes. I love this panel!

It was funny when we were planning, we kept saying, "What will spook the horses?" With eventing, we want them to jump anything, so we wanted to do bright designs that they might see at a show. We definitely accomplished that with the stops and run outs they have already caused! It definitely made me ride more defensively after my stop, so I learned a good lesson to keep my leg on and ride straight to the jump in a more defensive position.

Our next project will be this summer when we refresh all the poles and standards. We will have the most beautiful jumps ever!

Riding With Heidi and Jack

Yesterday was a slightly chilly but brilliantly sunny day. I had a really hard workout at the gym at lunchtime, so by the time I got on Jack after work, I just wanted to play around with him and not work too hard. He was happy to comply.

Here he is watching some of the other horses get caught to come in for the evening. Don't you love his sticking up mane? I worked so hard over the winter to train it to lay to the right. But once I pulled it, it popped back up!

It was hard handling a camera and two sets of reins! Not that I needed to do anything other than hold them in one fist. We only need the gag rein when we're jumping so he actually half halts. The rest of the time I only use the snaffle rein. It's just a regular eggbutt snaffle then, and he goes great in it!

I am trying out these field boots. A barn friend doesn't wear them and thought they might fit me. I need new boots, so I figured I would give them a shot. They have a zipper up the back, and I'm not totally sold on that idea. I know the zippers need to be replaced once in a while, and I also like traditional pull-on tall boots. So we'll see what I decide. They're cute, though!

Here's my self portrait in a couple of the arena mirrors. Jack and I did a little jumping outside just for fun, then wandered back up here to finish up. He was a good boy and it was fun to just mess around with him.

And if you want to know what it's like to walk around on Jack, here's your answer! I thought it would be fun if I could take a video while riding. I might try it again when I'm using my dressage bridle so I have fewer reins to worry about. Then I could trot or do something else. Jack was just happy and relaxed. What a great day!

Is It Spring Yet?

This is the view out my back window this morning. Don't we live in Washington and not Minnesota?


The dogs and I ran around in the downpour. Molly ate snow and Dylan gazed up into the sky admiring the fluffy flakes. I guess it's better to just enjoy it while it lasts... spring should be on its way soon!

No Stirrups!

This is just a short video Dave took yesterday. It will give you an idea of how my helmet cover looks when I'm riding, but please forgive the poor video quality. It's what you get with a point and shoot camera! I was working on my legs and riding without stirrups. I did some sitting trot, posting trot, and canter in both directions. Ouch! Even if your legs are strong, they burn at some point when going stirrup-less. I have been working on building up my endurance in jump position so I will be ready for cross country schooling and the Area VII Adult Riders' Camp that I just signed up for in May. Six instructors, some of them Olympians, riding two lessons a day for three days. I am pumped!

Helmet Cover

I have been attempting to make myself a helmet cover since last year when I went to my first show in May. I made one, it was horrible, so I made another. That one was marginally better, but I didn't have enough fabric on the bottom to add elastic, so I just taped it into my helmet for the show. Since then, I have been determined to figure it out and make a good one.

I was able to borrow a store bought one to look at as an example, and I decided to start from scratch. The seams were different on the store one than the two I had tried to make last year. So I made a pattern out of tissue paper, mimicking the seam lines but making it fit my helmet. I made sure to plan ahead for elastic and left more fabric on the bottom. The elastic was the hardest part. I couldn't quite get it to bunch evenly, but it works. Once I got the cover to sit smoothly on my helmet, I moved onto the decorations. Ever since I was a kid I liked the chevron helmet cover pictures in the tack catalogs. I made the chevrons out of a satin fabric with interfacing ironed on the back to give it more structure for my machine to sew through. I really like how it turned out!

I can't wait to get all my cross country stuff on and ride! Shows and schooling will be so much fun this year!