Florida Florida jiggidy jog

So.
Jen and I arrived in Ocala Florida monday morning, around 4:30 am, ahead of the horses by about an hour, just enough time to sleep a smidge before getting them settled and morning chores. We had left Pa at around 11am sunday morning stopping only to help water the horses bathroom breaks and of course, eat (our second favorite thing behind riding of course).

Its been two real (and by real i mean days not overcome with the overwhelming urge to curl into a ball and sleep) days and still, every five minutes or so, one of us mutters "oh. wow. it is sooooooo nice here" "Ah! how perfect is the weather?" "THE SUN! it feels so good" "ohhhh yeah. it. is beautiful out" etc etc etc. the only thing we have going for us right now is that we try and say it a different way every time, and yet i still think everyone thinks we are insane.


we have gotten to do some pretty sweet stuff so far, like listen in on a judges seminar led by a no-nonsense "L" dressage judge (i dont know what that means, except she is supposed to know what she is talking about). the future judges were to watch horse and rider pairs and critique them, saying the sorts of things they would write on the judges forms. and, well. it made me a little nervous hearing them talk about what they were seeing and thinking about them as the future of dressage judging for eventing aka future me. yikes! However, missy (our trainer) ransehousen and darren chiacchia (another advanced event rider) ride for the trainees.
it was really cool. then we walked with missy back to her barn while she bitched about their comments on her horse who looks amazing and is doing incredible considering he broke his stifle a year ago. (an injury many never recover fully from)


we also got to watch karen oconnor take a lesson from an old school german dressage rider/trainer. also super cool.


And, well..... its only going to get better. tomorrow we take a lesson from missy, and ask Karen Oconnor when she has time to give us a lesson or two and also when she wants to take us to dinner (that was her idea :) ) oh! and karen ALSO commented that all our horses look great. (hopefully she'll maintain that position once she watches them all go. ahem)
anyway
ill keep you posted on the juicy bits of course.


needless to say, getting settled has taken bit of effort, though not for the horses who are as happy as kittens sun bathing.
 And on that note, I will promise more stories and some serious details, later, and perhaps some photos when i have a moment to upload them, and, after i get some zzzzzs.
(plus i have to do all this on Missy's computer, which she so graciously let me use, cause mine wont connect to the stupid internets! Grrrrrrrr)


anyway, ttfn.