Colorado Day 8 – 4th of July!!!!

Look how almost caught up I am!

First I have to say.  I love 4^th of July.  I love summer, I love fireworks, I love watermelon, I love America!!!!  Ok love fest over, but really, 4^th of July is probably my most favorite holiday.  I even have nails in support of the Red White and Blue.

On my flight to Denver that morning, there were four members of the Armed services on the plane.  The pilot took the time to honor their service, and spoke to the spirit of 4^th of July.  Pretty cool. 

Sarah picked me up from the airport and we headed directly to the show.  My only agenda for that day was to school DC, but somehow managed to pass the time with various antics such as….

Admiring TJ’s equal love for the 4^th.

Can’t you tell how enthused he is?

And holding Luna for Courtney

Courtney and her sister Madelyn are two of the girls that ride at the barn TJ was located for his previous lease.  I got to know that entire barn family pretty well, and they often referred to me as an associate barn member.  Since the two girls wanted to do some out of state showing this summer, I recommended coming along for some fun in Colorado with Matt.  They came for the last two weeks, and I can't wait to hang out with them!  Goofy, fun, and loveable are the three adjectives that come to mind when I think of these two gals.  (yes they read this blog, yes they might have bribed be to say awesome things about them, but yes, it's all true nonetheless). 

I finally got on DC in the late afternoon, moseying on up to the warm up ring to do a little schooling.  For this week, Meghan, Matt’s assistant, had gone home, so Matt was alone with 21 horses, 14 riders, and 7 different rings.  It was going to be a busy weekend for sure.  Matt was signed up to do the Ride and Drive which was of course starting right at the same time that I was supposed to school DC.  We put our patient hats on and proceeded to wander around the show grounds waiting for the walk to be completed. 

When Matt made his way back to our warm up ring, he was dressed to impress with a 4^th of July shirt that was not to be believed (more on that later).  We schooled beautifully, and didn’t want to spend too much energy, so at six jumps we called it a day.

The Ride and Drive is a super crazy fun event that they do in CO one week each year.  The horse jumps a series of 1 meter jumps, any knock downs are added as 4 seconds to the time.  Then the rider jumps off the horse, jumps down a bank, through a set of military style tires, and then on a golf cart navigates a course of golf cart jumps, water, reverse, and cones.  I wish I would have thought to take a video, but at least Phelps Media got a great pic.

That shirt y’all.  That shirt. 

I actually considered doing this with TJ, but I didn’t perhaps think it would be his best set up for rusty stirrup……so I remained a spectator.

After that, Courtney, Madelyn, Sarah, and I all took our horses out for a graze.  I tried really hard to get all four in one pic, not so successfully.

But I did get an awfully cute one of yin and yang hanging out together.

That evening I met up with some friends for dinner and a few fireworks, excited about showing over the weekend, but mostly excited about FIREWORKS.  I really do love fireworks.