Washington International Horse Show

On Friday night, Shiloh and I got tickets to see the Washington International Horse Show. I had passed by the horses on F street a couple of times during the week, and could not wait to see them perform. I spent a good deal of time around horses during college, so the atmosphere definitely stirred up old memories. Great idea Shi!



In the 1st picture above, you can see one of the competitors for the Puissance competition. It is similar to the track event, high jump. The green portion of the wall can be elevated, so the horses take turns seeing how high they can jump. Michael Morrissey and the horse, Scaraberas, jumped 7'1/2" to win ... they tried for a new record, but didn't quite make it.

Here is a run-down of the other events we saw

• Open Jumper Costume Pair Relay
• Saddlebred Exhibition
• Terrier Races
• "Big & Little" - Caroline Williams' Friesian and Mini
• Dressage Exhibition - Ashley Holzer, Canadian Olympic Team
• Four-in-Hand Driving

I wish I had photos of the terrier races. Those little dogs were hilarious!
And check out the sweet mani/pedi!

Summer Wrap Up

Columbus Day Weekend

After all of your nice comments complaining that I haven't posted in a while, I decided that I better have something really significant to blog about. With that in mind, Shiloh and I ventured down south to Charlottesville,VA to go backpacking. Our great friends P & G (& G) joined us for the adventure.

Shiloh decided to make it easy for me, so we did a 14.5 mile hike over 2 days. At the end of the first day, my rear end was sore, by ankles were beat and my collar bone was feeling bruised. I didn't know how I was going to make it home.

At the lowest point of the second day, we were at 800 ft. At the highest, 3900 ft. I'm not going to lie - it wasn't fun. Being outside in the gorgeous weather was so nice and the scenery was amazing, but I couldn't have been more thrilled when it was over. Fortunately, I don't think I was the only one ready to go home.

Gabe was such a trooper, he hung out in his backpack for the entire hike without any complaints. I got hundereds of adorable pictures of him along the way. What a cool kid.

Overnight, Shiloh and I slept in the open air with Adi. This was the most entertaining part of the trip. She stayed up all night chasing away raccoons and several other animals that were interested in our garbage. She would be laying quietly one minute and then would take off, growling and snapping at various animals, one of which sounded much larger than I was comfortable with. I was amazed with her performance. Needless to say, she was a bit tired the next morning. After the trip, she spent over 24 hours at home on her pillow.

We were all relieved that we had Monday to catch up on sleep and stay off our feet.

**Stay tuned for recaps of our summer fun**