Bring it on

Bring it on...the wedding planning that is. The rain gave us a wonderful break today and I got to go to Savannah to meet up with Katie for the Georgia Bridal Show. Going and soaking up all of the wedding ideas was great but getting to catch up with Katie made the day wonderful!

The bridal show gave me a basis as far as budget goes and things that can realistically be done for a wedding. Katie also reminded me that it is about the experience..not about the chairs and centerpieces. I needed that reminder and I am so excited to get to share such an exciting day with all of our loved ones next spring.
Today also made me fall in love with Savannah. Right now I would say that my favorite place that I have visited thus far would have to be Key West, Savannah may be in second now. Katie and I got to wander around the city a little bit and found a cafe to grab lunch in the middle of Savannah. There was literally live music in the street and people milling about everywhere. Every street corner seemed to hide quiet corner parks and the streets were lined with pecan trees and "old man's beard" shading the way. The entire city seemed to drip with southern charm and I loved it! I'm looking forward to many more visits there to meet up with Katie!

One of the many unique modes of transportation around the city

One of the many quaint parks around Savannah,Ga

Raining cats and dogs

I recently read an article on a horsey site written by an event rider who travels down to South Carolina during the winter to compete in the warm weather. The entire article was written about why people shouldn't be jealous of "snowbirds." As I read through the article I just could not stop myself from thinking that this person must be the most whiny person ever! Some of her points about why moving south for the winter is not all its hyped up to be were; there is sand everywhere, we still have "cold" days and we have to compete against the Olympic team. As a rider who recently moved from the north to the south, I must say I have no idea what her problem is! Having sand everywhere is far far better than having snow everywhere, we may have cold days down here but they are no where near close to the 20 degree days that everyone up north experiences on a regular basis and competing against the best in the industry is a privilege and what most riders want! The only complaint that I have about the south, as far as the equine industry goes, is that we have no indoor arenas down here. Just because it doesn't snow down here doesn't mean that it doesn't rain, but while everyone up north is enjoying their indoor rings we sit inside and watch the rain flood out our arena and hope the sun will come out soon.
The past two weeks have been a wash out. The rain just keeps on coming! Spence, however, hasn't let the rain slow down progress. Two weeks ago Spence got his first pair of shoes, then last week I was able to clip his legs and face so he looks less goat like and this week we ventured out to Dr. Baker's place with a successful trailer trip and loading like a champ! Anyone who knew Spence before understands that all of these events are pretty huge for him...he is finally growing up and starting to act like a show horse!

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Happy Valentine's Day

We hope that everyone had a wonderful valentine's day filled with love and laughter. Valentine's day here in Georgia was of course filled with lots of laughs and lots of ponies, nothing out of the ordinary but certainly a day to realize just how lucky Mike and I are to have found each other. I am particularly thankful that he is so supportive of my dreams and the horses. This support has meant the world to me over the past couple of weeks as I have been working long hours with accepting outside riding lessons and proposing a new course to the college. This past week I had my first course proposal meeting with our athletic director and provost of the college, it went amazingly well! Now the next step is to get it through the curriculum board on Tuesday and then its on to the faculty meeting and setting up a time for the course. The thought of having equine studies courses has been on the minds of many coaches through the years at Wesleyan and I am just so excited that with hard work and a ton of organization it is looking like a reality! The addition of these courses will mean I will be a professor in the fall and hopefully our team will start to grow from the new students the courses will bring in. Fingers crossed! Mike and my family have all been wonderful as sounding boards while I have been developing these courses and I cannot thank them enough.

Mike and Tucker hanging out at Wesleyan on Scholarship Day

Speaking of thanking people I also have to thank my parents for teaching me the value of hard work and never giving up. Of course, everyone in your life tells you that you have to work hard and blah blah blah but watching my parents growing up I actually saw that hard work being put into action. There are so many days when I realize how lucky I am to have parents that never let me take things for granted, they always made sure I saw what it took to get to a certain point. I know that Mike is also extremely grateful to his parents for this same thing. Neither of us look at each other and expect for a big house to just appear, we realize that it takes years of hard work to build the foundation for successful and happy lives and honestly as long as we are working hard together its really kind of nice. I know we both also feel very lucky to have grown up with such amazing examples of loving marriages. Tough times either bring couples together or tear them apart and I am so grateful that we have both been lucky enough to see those times pull our parents closer to each other. Thank you for setting such a wonderful example for us!

This past weekend we were lucky enough to have Keri in town for a visit which was so nice! It was great to have another friendly face around here and to catch up on the happenings of the world. This coming weekend I get to head off to Savannah for a bridal show with Katie and I cannot wait!!! I haven't seen Katie since her wedding two summers ago which is just crazy, so there will be lots of catching up to do. Plus an entire day of nothing but fun wedding stuff...sounds pretty perfect to me:) The one challenge that this road trip will present will be testing my willpower. This year for Lent I decided to give up fast food...except for the occasional fish sandwich on Fridays but I won't allow myself fries or any other goodies with it. So traveling without fastfood should be interesting. I think the promise of wedding fun and catching up with Katie at the end of the road will keep me driving past everything. Prepare to hear all about wedding stuff next time!

Superbowl Sunday

Its been a pretty long week but one filled with lots of exciting challenges! For the past month or so I have been developing equine courses for the college so that we can start to work towards having an equine studies minor. Both of the stable management courses are all figured out complete with syllabi and weekly topic outlines and the equine internship has already been approved. The next step is to pitch the stable management classes to the dean and that will be happening on Feb. 13th! Needless to say I'm super excited and feeling surprisingly well prepared. As I wrote out the cover letter for the proposal I realized just how much these courses really will help out our struggling college and hopefully draw more students to the riding teams. Fingers crossed it goes well! With all of these exciting changes happening its looking like next year will be the upswing we need at Wesleyan. The hunt seat team didn't disappoint this week either. After an awesome practice last weekend and some great lessons this week, they headed off to Georgia Southern yesterday and everyone came home with ribbons! While I had to stay at home and look after the farm I'm still very excited and proud of the girls and looking forward to Clemson in two weeks.
Apparently the weather also wanted to get in on the excitement this week. Wednesday was absolutely crazy with tornado warnings throughout the day and unbearable winds...thank goodness it was in the 70's though! Thankfully we made it through without any damage and no tornadoes too terribly close. Please keep the families affected by the huge tornado in Northern Georgia in your thoughts. I know we are keeping them in our thoughts and prayers and are very thankful to report that the McCurdy family (where Lou spent the first part of his Georgia journey) is safe as well even with a tornado touching down just 3 miles away. I have a feeling we are going to have to get used to some major weather changes being down here, just as long as we don't have any blizzards I think we'll be just fine.
After the long week it will be nice to relax with some awesome football food and watch the game tonight. We hope that everyone else had a great week and is able to enjoy the game tonight with family and friends. We miss you all!

Badger did not want to help write the blog last week