Belated Horse Show Post

I have been meaning to update our poor little blog for a while now. Since school started our schedules have been pretty hectic so I am finally getting around to it. Plus I have recently started a blog for my internship, so by the time I have time for my own blog, I'm all blogged out!

Here are a few pictures from the last horse show we went to. It was a ton of fun and it was great to get to compete again.

Sorry the picture is blurry, it was Cory's first time photographing me jumping and the timing can be tricky.

I guess Handsome didn't want to take a picture :)

The show grounds were really nice!

 

Our friends Justin and Talia also came to see me ride!

Cory's whole family also came out to watch me ride. Since it was their first time at a horse show it was really fun to explain all of the rules and happenings of the horse show. We also took them to their first rodeo later that night.

Here is a picture of all of us minus amanda and alex.

Weekend Sweet Weekend

So Cory and I are really looking forward to this weekend because we are going to a horse show! On Friday we will be headed to South Jordan to spend a little time horsin around.

Since Cory doesn't have a good jumping horse to compete on he won't be riding with me, but it will still be fun to have him there to help me out. I haven't competed in over a year and I can't wait! Handsome has been doing great lately and I think we are both happier when we have something to work towards.

This picture was taken in Virginia during a jumping lesson.



So wish me luck and hopefully I'll have more pictures to post later!

The Need for Speed (in a VW Jetta 1.8L TDI)

So Ciara and I were driving home the other day, talking about fast cars when she says, "I'm surprised this one can do 160..." I respond with, "just because the speedometer goes up to 160 doesn't mean the car can actually go that fast." Then a brief silence fell over the car, and she says, "...this one can."

At first I thought she was just joking around, I didn't imagine the little 4-banger diesel surviving anything much above 100. However, I insisted that she tell me just how she knew that our "mellow" little Jetta could go so fast. To my surprise there was a story:

Not too long after purchasing her car, she was driving through some remote part of Wyoming and her mom was sleeping in the front seat. Since the drive is not exactly exhilarating (and since her nuclear-safety-engineer mother was safely asleep), she decided to see just what her new little car could do. She pushed the pedal to the floor and listened to that little 1.8 liter diesel engine kick to life. She didn't let off until that little orange needle had settled down at the far-right side of the speedometer...160 mph. Fearing that her mom might wake up (and soon thereafter die of a heart attack), she slowed back down to a normal, remote-Wyoming-road pace.

...I'm pretty sure that was the COOLEST story I've ever heard! Does anyone have something like a BMW M6 that we could borrow for a day? I wanna pretend to fall asleep in the front seat while she's driving and see what happens!

"Crick" or "Creek"

For Memorial Day weekend we got the chance to take a trip to good ole Challis, Idaho. Challis is a tiny town where my dad grew up on a cattle ranch and where I spent many summers riding horses, herding cows and swimming in creeks (also pronounced "crick"). We went down for my cousin's graduation where there was a whopping 36 graduates. It was the best graduation ceremony I have ever been to because it only lasted about an hour :)

While we were there we also got to see a lot of baby horses that were in the field behind my aunt's house. They were pretty far away so we attempted to get closer by bringing some carrots with us to see if the horses were interested. A family friend (who is not a horse person) decided she wanted to come with us, but instead of bringing some carrots, she thought the horses would respond better if she brought cheese. That was pretty funny because if you know anything about horses at all you would understand that horses DEFINITELY don't eat cheese!

I also had the wonderful opportunity of getting my hair dyed and touched up by my aunt. We had planned to do it the previous day so that I could pick up all the stuff. The only problem was that when the time came to actually dye it, I discovered that my aunt had been having a little too much fun and was a little tipsy if you know what I mean (my family on that side have been known to be some pretty furious party animals).

Even though she was tipsy, I decided to take a gamble and let her dye it anyway. Luckily I still have hair on my head and the dye job didn't turn out too bad either! I just might ask her to dye it again sometime... I'm curious to know how good of a job she would do if she was sober : )

Confessions of a Rehabilitated Trekkie

Last night we went to see the new Star Trek movie. I thought it was fun and worth seeing, but it definitely threw me back to my incredibly nerdy childhood.

...I once proudly considered myself a trekkie (granted I was about 11 years old). I used to get together with my best friends Tyler and David and we'd pretend to be various characters from Star Trek. We would choose a Star Trek series (e.g. the original series, "the Next Generation," etc.) and spend hours flying around in our Federation starship fighting off Klingons and Romulans...that is if we weren't playing as Klingons or Romulans...

We also used to go to the public library and check out all of the old Star Trek movies on VHS and watch them repeatedly. I would also check out as many "non-fiction" Star Trek books as possible so I could fill my little head with the dimensions and top speeds of star ships, defining attributes of various intergalactic races, how to sew your own command officer's uniform, etc.

When my mom would occasionally let me rent an Super Nintendo game, I would try to find the "Star Trek Starfleet Academy Starship Bridge Simulator" game. Also, I was ecstatic when my cousin Brian got a similar computer game for Christmas...we spent many hours cruising through the "final frontier" of space.

..We won't mention the action figures or the Star Trek badge that was frequently attached to my shirt.

Thankfully I'm well past all of that. Needless to say, I kept all of this a secret until I was already happily married and beyond the threat of having Ciara wanting it annulled.

Anyway, the new movie is lots of fun, but definitely gave me flashbacks of my dark past...Live Long and Prosper.

Credit Card Slayer

Well, this last weekend we went to the Dave Ramsey seminar at the E Center in West Valley. It was really good. My dad wants us all to learn how to manage finances well and stay out of debt; so, last Christmas he got us all Dave's book Total Money Makeover and gave us all tickets to his seminar (which took place last Saturday).

I liked it a lot, he explained a series of steps that we need to take to get out of debt (and avoid any more of it), have enough money for emergencies, start a college fund, and build wealth. It was all very practical advice and didn't involve any crazy financial antics. The whole idea is not to buy something if you don't have the money for it...quite a novel idea.

It was a pretty fantastic Christmas present. Ciara and I are taking the challenge and are going to get rid of all our debt. Even though there's not all that much of it, it's something we can do without.

Anyway, check out the Dave Ramsey website (http://www.daveramsey.com). He's got a lot of good stuff on there. Nothing crazy either; just good sound advice.

A Fork in the Eye

Finals are finally done... I'm kind of surprised I survived them really. My accounting test was this ridiculous ordeal that took me over 4 hours (they gave us 5 to take it). It was only 35 questions long and was worth 1/4 of our entire grade. I'm not sure whose idea that was, but I'm pretty sure I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a fork than take another test like that.

Anyway, they're finished now. School is done, so now I can get back to my regular fishing schedule. It's been WAY too long since I've been able to go. I've got a couple months left of my fishing license, and I plan on making up for all my lost fishing time during the semester.

Other exciting news: I'm still getting into the whole horse jumping thing. Now I can ride a whole course without falling off and getting a mouthful of dirt.

Aso, Ciara's birthday is this Tuesday so we had a little celebration at my parents' house tonight. It was a lot of fun.

...Anyway, I'm kinda out of it tonight so I'm going to wrap this one up. Have a good night everyone!