Long-Overdue Post

First of all, I have to make the usual excuse for not posting: It's summer, and I'm tooooooo busy....I'm sorry! This week up until Thursday my cousin Anika was here, and when Anika left on Thursday, my Uncle Greg came, and then on Friday my cousin Renie came, and ahhhhhhh, I just haven't posted. I'm sorry (again!)! Tomorrow we are seeing the musical, Wicked (YEY, YEY, YEY!) and on Tuesday Daisy is going to Jean's house, and on Wednesday I start "camp"-I'll be staying for 10 days at Jean's with Daisy, practicing for the show on Daisy and Bubba, and then next Sunday is an open show at the fairgrounds, on Monday is an open show at the fair, and the rest of the week I'll be showing at the fair. We will be getting a stall for every horse at the fairgrounds, and spending everyday there, then trailering them home to Jean's at night. I will try to post on Monday, but I guess I'm not promising anything. I did go and visit my brother, Markus, last weekend, and I still haven't posted the pictures from there, even though I want to. I tried to upload the pics to slide.com before, but it didn't work.... :-(

In the meantime, I leave you with this picture of my brother's new horse, Buck!!! ISN'T HE CUTE?! He is. :) Talk to you soon!

9:31 PM

Tagged!-SONGS

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

Songs

1. Maps-Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs
2. Viva La Vida-Coldplay
3. Speed of Sound-Coldplay (the song on the last slideshow)
4. Here I Am, Send Me-Delirious?
5. Supermassive Black Hole-Muse
6. For Good-from the Wicked Musical, which I'm seeing this Sunday (YEYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), by Stephen Schwartz
7. Map of the Problematique-Muse

I tag, umm.... My penpal, Alli, and everyone else who would want to do it, I think, is tagged....If you do want to do it, consider yourself tagged by me! I will do a real post tomorrow or Thursday, to catch you up.

Evaluation Day

Hey! Evaluations were on Wednesday, and first off, they went very well. You may have seen some of these pictures on my Mom's blog, but I'm showing them anyway, in case you haven't.

My cousin, Anika, and I went to Jean, my 4H leader's house, on Wednesday morning. We cleaned the stalls (along with the other 4H-ers, Oliver and Jessie, and her sister). I rode Daisy around and barrel raced her a little, which was fun and I think she'll do very well with that once we get back into it a little, and then we worked a little on sitting trot and cantering. Then I tacked up and rode Bubba, Anika rode Daisy, Oliver rode his own, sweet little Morgan pony mare, Bella, and Jessie's sister rode another mare there, and we all went for a trail ride. Bubba was pretty good, except when we had to ride toward the back of the line of riders, then he started to get pushy, but it was alright. I rode him a little in the indoor, and he was great. Normally he's very strong and it's hard to get a good handle on him, but Wednesday he rode very well. We untacked, and Anika and I gave Daisy a bath, and all the horses got baths. Ate lunch, cleaned tack, got ready for the evaluations. We trailered Bella and Daisy there first, all tacked up, and when we got there Jessie rode Bella and I rode Daisy first. I got evaluated by a very nice young women who was quite kind, even though Daisy's trot to canter transitions were VERY sloppy, and my hands were "flamboyant" when they should have been lower to Daisy's neck. We passed though. We had to walk, trot, canter, halt, and back up for the judge, and then answer questions like how to pass around a horse in certain type quarters, and how to behave around a horse.

Then we brought Daisy back while Anika stayed with Bella and we switched for Bubba. Tacked him up, brought him there, and I rode him. I did (sadly, lol) better on him then on Daisy, but I credit it to the fact that he's a bit better trained (ok, a lot better trained) on leads and transitions, and complicated stuff like that. It felt wonderful to ride him and I think I rode him the best ever that night. Oliver, Jean's son, rode Bella for his evaluation (he and Jessie got evaluated for just walk/trot) and then they trailered home. It was a fun night.

Daisy came home yesterday morning, and Anika and I slept in the barn last night...except for a certain horse waking me this morning ;-) the night went well. :)

Tomorrow Anika and I are going to visit my brother, Markus, and his "family" and animals, so I'll be back Sunday night.

3:35 PM

Remember you can ALWAYS press the + and - signs to speed up and slow down the slide. The captions aren't anything special this time, so that's why I allowed myself to add the song, which kind of covers up the captions.

Daisy's Mini Vacation

So, yesterday afternoon Daisy got picked up and taken to my 4H leader, Jean's, house. She was in the trailer for about an hour and a half as we had to make multiple stops before we got home. She did awesome! She went right on the trailer with me, and she got off good, too! She would stop and whinny at all our stops, which included a bank, the 4H office, tractor supply and blockbuster. It was so cute! Here you see some pics of her on the trailer and at Jean's.

I rode her while Jean rode Bubba on a 4 1/2 mile block in the rain yesterday. Today I rode her for about an hour in the indoor arena that was just built, and around 40 minutes on the trail. In the arena I did some barrel racing, and first she was slow and lazy, but I got the crop and smacked her a few times ;-) and she did much better! She's quick and she turned really nice around the barrels! Tomorrow are the evaluations, so I'll probably post tomorrow or Thursday and let you know how they went.

9:32 PM