Two Awesome Weekends
Lots has been going on in the life and times of yours truly. We boarded a plane and headed off to Dallas on Good Friday and got to spend the Easter holiday with the family. The flight anxiety was worse than it has ever been on the way there but not so bad on the way home. I was not sure I was going to be able to board the flight and even the pharmaceutical aids were not helping much. Somehow I managed it though and we lived and had a fantastic weekend to show for it. We arrived early in the morning and spent some time visiting with my P's and my sister and her hubby & kids. My cousin and her fiance' met up with us that evening and it was off to bunny rampage, which is a bar crawl but everyone dresses as bunnies or at least some type of Easter themed costume. We were quite the attraction as we boarded the train and walked the streets of Dallas to get from pub to pub. It was a really fun time and we met lots of crazy people.
I manged to find a stray dog on Easter Sunday. Of course I had to bring him back to my sister's place. I'm pretty sure my brother in law wanted to kill me in spite of the fact that he was warming up to the dog as the day went on. Fortunately the owners were out looking for him and we were able to get them reunited. I was thankful for the happy ending story because otherwise I would have boarded the flight home and my sister would have been left to figure out what to do with the dog.
The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. We spent it hanging out with the family, taking walks, watching one of the boys' football games and just generally catching up with each others' lives and being in each others' company. We abandoned the traditional Easter dinner and grilled out instead. The cook out was complete with beer and shots done out of egg dying cups and plastic egg halves typically used for hiding Easter treasure. It was really nice to be around family for the weekend.
This past weekend was nothing short of incredible when Lance and I spent the weekend camping at a Parelli horsemanship event.
We arrived on Friday afternoon at about 2pm and settled the horses and trailer in. There was a large arena open to us with lots of people and horses working in it. There were professional instructors available to help coach all the students. Since the arena was pretty full we decided to head out on a trail ride. We were joined by a friend who never had her horse on the trails before. They were awesome together the ride out was a HUGE success. Once back at the stalls, I decided to bring Tucker into the arena as chance to expose him to all those horses in one spot at once. He was a champ! Pony got a turn that afternoon as well. I got her out and gave her a chance to take in all commotion and activities going on.
After dark we joined up with 3 other people to release the horses into the arena and just let them run. There were a few minutes of galloping around but they quickly settled down and it was fascinating to watch my three “herd” up and interact with the others as a group. Boy was I surprised when Tucker asserted himself against one of the other dominant geldings in the group POW with a very solid kick to his chest. OUCH, but fortunately no damage done.
On Saturday hubby and I both participated in tournaments which were timed events where you were given a series of tasks to perform and you could score points for each task depending on how advanced you were able to complete that particular thing. On Saturday we also joined up with another couple and did a demo with our horses which is really just an opportunity to show some of the cool things you can do with your horse. We spent the rest of the day watching other people do tournaments and spotlights with their horses. It was so cool to see all the different things people had done with the program and taught their horses to do.
I wouldn’t have believed the day could get any better but it did when our friends fixed us a delicious meal!
We brought the event to a close by hitting the trails with the same friends we had done a demo with and had dinner with the night before. It was a lovely ride. The weather was perfect, the horses were calm and I think everyone enjoyed being out taking in the scenery.
To top off an awesome weekend last night we did a yoga class accompanied by didgeridoo music. It was so relaxing and cool to have someone playing while we practiced.