Awarded!

Hello everyone! I wish I could say that I'm writing because I rode today, but it's for a reason just as nice!

I got an award from JJ over at The Joy of Horses! Yay! Thank you!

Here are the rules:
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award

2. Share 7 things about yourself

3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers

4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!


Onto the 7 things!

1. I would love to have time to expand my training to more than my own three horses. I could stay in the stables all day and train and never get tired of it. I might not ever make enough money to have a huge house and other things that most people want, but I would have my horses and the simple things I love in life.
2. I really started to get passionate about horses after I dislocated my knee and took a leave from the competitive dance world. During the three months that I was on crutches/couldn't ride, I took the time to seriously look at what my trainer, Andre, was doing and learned by his observation and look at what my mom was doing from her English discipline experience and began to really make sense of why we do what we do. 
3. I would absolutely love to own a dressage horse. It's been kind of my dream of mine ever since I saw the amazing dressage coats to wear one, and while I could technically just buy one and wear it around, chillin, that would be weird. So I need a dressage horse.
4. The most annoying thing in the world for me is to not be challenged. Except in the case of Brie: I'm perfectly happy not being challenged as much by her anymore, because her challenge has lasted for 5 years and now I just feel a huge sense of accomplishment getting on for a relaxing ride.
5. I have a hard time deciding what kind of style I want to stick with. Since Pasos generally go either way outside of the show arena (in which is a very specific style of clothing/tack), I have a hard time deciding whether I want to stick to breeches and paddock boots or Levi's and Justin's. This led to a huge collection of breeches in my closet when now I want to wear jeans all the time. Whoops.
6. My absolute favorite breed of horse? Fresian. Prettyyyy <3 I'd love to have a Fresia-Fino.
7. I spend a lot of time thinking up blueprints for my future dream horse farm in my spare time.

Onto the passing on of the awards! I might not be able to think of 15 horse specific blogs that I follow...(of course I'd give it back to JJ!)

1. A Teen's Dressage Dream
2. Dressa-crosse in Steel Shoes
3. Horse Whispers

Snap...I need to expand my horse blog circle. Anyways...Congratulations!

Awards! & Equestrian Team Day 6

First off, let me say:

THANK YOU KYLE FOR THIS AWARD!

I'm so excited! This is the first award I've gotten for this blog (which I didn't even think people actually read, by the way) and it makes me super happy. Now, onto the rules.

Here are the rules!
Rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic!
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

Step 1? check.
Step 2? Here it goes!

1. I love my horses to death! (if you couldn't tell)
2. I hate the favoritism in the show circuit, but I guess it's the same in any sport. You pay your dues.
3. I've been "training" since about 8 months after we bought Brie because that's when Andre we moved from that horrid place that we were at so it was easier for him to get to work. We've pretty much been on our own since!
4. I'm starting to really not trust trainers as much as others do. Not really a bad thing.
5. I feel really bad/upset when I see people who keep training and training their horses and never actually learn how to do anything by themselves. Waste of money.
6. I want to have my own horse farm one day, just for private use probably. I'd just love to see my horses out back in the mornings as I ate breakfast.
7. I want to start to branch out of the Paso world!

Step 3? Okay, I definitely don't have 15 horse blogs I follow, so let's see who I come up with.

• Suzie and Echo @ Diary of a Young Horse
  
• SillyPony @ Diary of the Overanxious Horse Owner
• Sianc18 @ Riding and Training a Young Horse
• Michelle @ Michelle's Blog

I absolutely adore all of you and can't tell you enough how much I look forward to reading your posts. =]


Step 4? I'll do that after I post.

Now! Onto the real post!

Now I know I haven't been updating about my adventures on the Equestrian Team. I haven't posted for like a month about this. But I was so excited today that I just had to tell the world!
Basically for the past 4 lessons I've been getting my diagonals easily confused (I can't help it! I just can't see it and can't feel it for that matter). So I get a little bummed out after lessons. Especially after last week on an especially bumpy and difficult *ahemCROPcough* ride on Jimmy so I wasn't to thrilled about sharing that. But then this week =] Oh this week. Today as a matter of fact, I had a very good ride. I cantered around a bunch of times and it felt fantastic! I definitely built up my confidence in staying on a humongous horse (compared to a Paso!) while cantering around. Even better? Our instructor, Nell, promised me that if I'm that good cantering on a couple more horses I'll start jumping!

*happy dance*

I can't wait! If I get the next three months of school we have left with jumping and then the entire summer with my mom's friend? I'll be super ready to kick butt at shows in the fall.
And guess what? I'm also making friends =] with girls on top of that! I pretty much don't get along with girls at all, so I'm super happy to be making friends with them, it's nice. Today was such a good day, and now I can't wait for Saturday and Sunday to start FINALLY working with Nina, because I pretty much have been banned from riding her since she began under saddle *glareTRAINERglare* and then I'm also really eager to work more on increasing Harry's flexibility and overall making Brie happy. I'm a little bummed it's going to be cold this weekend, I was hoping that this warm weather would carry over and I could ride outside.. =/ But we'll make it work.