March 3, 2015

Blogger Meetup, Part 1

I think it says a lot that when I got back from Bloggers' Weekend, I felt relaxed and not like I had been on vacation.  Usually when you stay at someone else's house for a while, it's awkward, but I felt right at home at JenJ's.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including Jen's 1 year old Great Pyrenees, Gus.   I weigh about 10lbs more than he does!
Also, seeing this outside your window is pretty freakin' sweet:

Brego and Paddy!  I have a thing for well-set up tiny farms, and Wyvern Oaks is a seriously well set up and well-maintained place.

I had flown in to Houston on Tuesday, spent two days with my childhood best friend, then took the bus to Austin on Thursday.  Rural Texas looks very much like my backyard growing up, with lots of cattle, cattleguards, and oil pumpers.

This is actually a picture of my backyard growing up.

After watching Paddington bring no game to his lesson on Thursday (actually it was very valuable for me to see, because my own pulling breed pony often brings no game to his lessons, and I got some ideas for dealing with it from Jen's awesome trainer) and getting to ride Brego in an arena during the lesson as well:
Detailed recap on serious Brego riding coming soon.  He taught me a lot.

I spent most of Friday with Lauren and Genny, and got to ride Simon!


He is awesome, you guys.  I loved riding him.  He was forward, and happy, but I never felt unsafe, and he clearly knows his job and does it well.  Lauren has really done a great job with him.

Then Genny and I switched horses and I got to ride former big eq horse Mia:

You see me rollin'?  Literally, those stirrups are rolled twice!
She was a blast!   It was so different riding Connor and riding her, I may as well have been on different planets.  I don't ride horses very often, and especially not big strided big eq horses, so that was fun and different.  I took a picture of her neck just because I was amazed at how long it was (proportional, I'm just used to looking at much shorter necks):


I apologize in advance for all of the clashing red in this picture.  I think Jen about lost it when I showed this to her (she sadly had to work while we played with Simon and Mia):


After that it was time to thaw out and meet everyone else!  More to come.

Simon selfie with Genny!

17 comments:

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    1. It was! I hope more people can come next year.

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  2. Me (and Simon) certainly enjoyed having you! Hoping this becomes a yearly thing and I know I'd make an effort to get somewhere outside of TX for sure.

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    1. Ro-lex Ro-lex. But seriously, thank you for hosting us and putting all that work into it, and letting me ride Simon. It was great!

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  3. Sounds like a fab time!
    Ps the cwd jacket looks awesome!!!!

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  4. The setup of Wyvern Oaks is SERIOUSLY impressive!

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    1. I know! I was telling my mom all about it, since they have a similar but not quite as well maintained setup. I loved it.

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    2. Aw, thanks! It's actually in desperate need of spring cleanup - we had hoped to have it tidier before the weekend, but the weather being what it was and all... give it another 3 weeks and it will be at its prime!

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  5. Great to meet you at Lauren's!

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  6. Sounds like a blast! The cool factor of the cwd coat negates the clashing red issues, ;)

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  7. What an awesome time!! Very cool that you got to ride all the horses too - they all seem super neat. It must have been really interesting seeing Wyvern Oaks in person after following the progress and building on the blog

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  8. Love the pics and seeing you on other horses :)

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