Omaha - Not As Flat As You Think!

The Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting has long been on Billy's bucket list, so now that we're within driving range of Omaha (where it is held every year) we decided to make the trek. If you're wondering what the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting is, then you're on the same page as me. Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett's company and the annual shareholder's meeting is a must-do for any finance enthusiast, so it goes without saying that Billy has been dying to go.

If you're wondering, "Why in the world would you willingly go to Nebraska for a finance meeting that you know absolutely nothing about?!", then you are in the same frame of mind I was when Billy asked me to go in the first place. Three things: free things, lots of shopping, and a 5K. The last may not be as compelling to some people, but I've been determined to do another one, so between that and the prospect of lots of free stuff, I agreed to make the pilgrimage to Omaha.

Surprisingly (or maybe not to anyone with a good sense of geography), Eastern Colorado was the worst part to drive of this trip. Nebraska had its rough patches, but made up for it in having the most horribly awesome restaurant to stop at - Ole's Big Game Tavern.

Was it disturbing that the every wall was filled with stuffed animals that Ole had killed back in the day? Yes. Was it weird to have them watching me as I downed a burger that inevitably came from a feedlot in Nebraska? Extremely. But if there was ever one establishment to sum up rural Nebraska in one place, it is Ole's. Plus, I got to expand my novelty t-shirt collection.

Nebraska also had some seriously cool attractions, including our second stop on our road trip, Buffalo Bill's ranch in North Platte. It's right off the highway, so if you're ever driving through Nebraska, I definitely recommend it! It's super cheap and really cool, plus the tour is self-guided and I can't imagine it ever being crowded. It was a great opportunity to stretch our legs, learn some history, and enjoy the view.

Once we arrived in Omaha, my first impression was that it was 500% hillier than I was expecting. Suddenly, I remembered all the hill work I didn't do in Denver in preparation for this "easy, flat 5K" in Omaha. So much for that! The shareholder's meeting was the main event of the weekend, and we got up bright and early Saturday morning to ensure we got seats.

"Is there actually that much of a demand for good seats?" is what you are probably wondering. When people refer to this meeting as a "pilgrimage," they are in no way exaggerating. This is Mecca for finance geeks (I mean enthusiasts).

We got these seats after arriving an hour early! The meeting itself was actually quite interesting. I understood more than I thought I would, and particularly enjoyed Charlie Munger's commentary during the Q&A session. Billy described him as the "George Morris of the finance world" and I would have to say he's pretty spot on, although I'm now realizing the comparison is completely useless to any non-horse people. After the lunch break, I did have to take a break from the Q&A, so I left Billy to soak in the experience while I went to soak in the shopping.

Warren Buffett owns basically everything

We wrapped up Saturday evening with an incredible dinner at the Jackson Street Tavern, where I indulged in an Omaha steak (that's exactly what you're supposed to do before a race, right? Binge eat?). We were joined by one of Billy's friends from the Navy and his wife, which was a ton of fun. After a big day, we packed it in early to try to get some rest before the 5K. I tried to ignore the fact that my legs were already tired from the hills of Omaha.

The weather had been perfect all weekend, but naturally the morning of the race it was freezing. Both of us only brought shorts, so we sought refuge in the nearby Hilton with the hundreds of other people from out of town that did not pack the right clothing. Unfortunately, Warren did not join us for the race, but I still set a new personal record and didn't get my butt totally handed to me by the hills of Omaha (seriously, who knew Omaha was hilly?!).

We wrapped up our weekend with a quick trip to the Joslyn Art Museum downtown, a stalkerish stop at Warren Buffett's house, and a long drive back to Denver (punctuated by a stop at Dairy Queen and the state capital). Omaha exceeded all my expectations and was a really beautiful city to stay in. The only thing we missed was the zoo - I was THAT tired after the 5K.

Fountain at the Joslyn Art Museum 

Heyy Warren

State Capital in Lincoln

I know I've gone on long enough, but a few last things. While casually stalking Warren Buffett, a nerdy looking young guy was walking aimlessly around the neighborhood. Billy immediately pegged him as looking for Warren's house while I insisted he give him the benefit of the doubt and that many people can't really be stalking Warren Buffett. As soon as that thought left my mouth, the guy stopped in Warren's driveway to take a picture. 

As usual, I highly recommend all the places mentioned in this post! The art museum is huge and very impressive, plus Warren Buffett's daughter made a big donation so that everyone can go to the museum for free this year. If you're ever in Omaha and looking for somewhere to eat, go anywhere in Old Market. Actually, just walk around Old Market even if you're not hungry. It's a really cool neighborhood/downtown area. Omaha rocks.

And just in case you think we abandoned the whole plastic dinosaur thing, here's me and Byron outside of a Sinclair gas station with one of Byron's relatives.

Come Sail Away

Billy's trip to Florida was capped off by a visit to see his mom and stepdad on the west coast of Florida. During the winter, they live on a sailboat in Punta Gorda, which is outside of Fort Meyers on the Gulf of Mexico. Last time we visited was for Thanksgiving, and since there were more of us and Thanksgiving is mostly centered around eating mass quantities of food, they rented a house for all of us to stay in. It also wasn't ideal sailing weather then, so we ended up not actually going anywhere on the boat.

When Billy told me we were "going sailing," I thought he meant a quick day outing around the bay before coming back to the marina for the evening. I realized I was mistaken when Billy looked at me like I had six heads when I started packing running shoes. "Don't you want to run around the marina while we're there?" I asked him. "We're going sailing...as in we will be anchored out in the water overnight," Billy responded.

OH. That's even more exciting! I had never gone out on a big sailboat beyond the half hour trip around the Elk River I experienced a few times at summer camp, so I was pretty pumped to be going on a true nautical adventure. I captured a few of the highlights on video, including me driving the boat, attempting to blow the conch shell at sunset, and kayaking with manatees.

As you can see, the manatees were much friskier than usual. The most I was expecting to see was a nose come up for air, since that was all I saw last time I was in Florida. And because I had only seen their noses, I grossly underestimated their size. Apparently, it is manatee mating season, so they were in a baby-making frenzy which made for some great nature-watching.

Until they started bumping the kayaks. Usually they are quite mindful of whatever is in the water, staying away from boats and generally being very shy. Not surprisingly, all bets are off during mating season. I was extremely nervous the entire time that I was going to get bumped, and was staying out of their way as best they could. I thought I was floating in a safe zone, until I saw a little nose pop out of the water right next to me.

"Aww hi buddy," I said with delight. Second later, I was much less delighted as I was riding the back of an especially amorous manatee. According to eye-witness reports (aka Billy, his mom, and his stepdad) I was almost two feet out of the water at one point as the manatee breached out of the water and took me for a ride. Suffice it to say, it was the most terrifying five to ten seconds of my life. Unfortunately this was not caught on camera, although I'm told my face was absolutely priceless (I was internally panicking about capsizing and getting stuck in some sort of manatee lovefest that I wanted no part of).

After that, I decided I'd had enough of the manatee lagoon, so we paddled back out to the boat, not before catching some dolphins nearby as well! One of the coolest parts of this trip was all the wildlife we saw up close, and while the manatee experience took a turn for the worse at the end, my (not-so-secret) inner animal nerd was thrilled.

Apologies for my atrocious videographer skills. I'm already unsteady enough without getting overly excited about NATURE. 

This trip was the perfect mini-vacation and I can't thank Jan and Dave enough for hosting us! I don't think I can come up with anything that would have made our trip better...we had perfect weather and had a wonderful time kicking back with family (and a few tropical drinks and beers). I came back feeling totally refreshed, although sad that it meant Billy was leaving.

Now, on to the last two weeks of the horse show! I think I can, I think I can...

Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude

Billy hopped on a plane to Florida last week after finishing up school in Denver. Between his grueling school schedule and my hours at WEF, we were more than ready for a break, and we wasted no time taking off.  We set out for the Florida Keys to see Leah, who works with Billy on Base Directory. She lives on Summerland Key, which is about 30 minutes north of Key West, and was kind enough to host us for a few days. Leah was amazing and we could not have asked for a more generous hostess - or a better tour guide!

Escaping Wellington for our fill of island life!

We picked up Leah in Summerland and went in to Key West for lunch and a quick driving tour of Key West. Spring break was not quite in full swing yet, but there were still plenty of frat bros and people of all ages alarmingly intoxicated for mid-day. From Leah's description of Key West's festivities, most of them involve partial to full nudity, which isn't even illegal in the "Party Zone" on Duvall Street. Fortunately, we didn't run into any of that and instead fruity drinks and yummy food at Sunset Pier before heading over to the Key West Legal Rum Distillery. 

I made the fatal error of forgetting my ID during Spring Break season, so I did not get to partake in the rum tasting. Leah and Billy told me it was delicious though haha. The distillery made their own white rum as well as key lime flavored rum, which apparently was amazing. As a sidenote, I didn't realized that the "key" in "key lime" came from the Florida Keys. Apparently they have their own lime species here! Obviously, we had to indulge in authentic key lime pie, which Leah whipped up for us our first night. I quickly bonded with her boyfriend over his philosophy of pies being split into six slices, max.

Tuesday was our only full day in Key West, so we packed as much in as possible. We started off with a running tour of some Key West landmarks, beginning with the Southernmost Point in the United States.

Next stop was the Key West Cemetery, which I didn't take pictures of because that would be creepy. It had a really cool, eclectic assortment of memorials - everything from very modest to incredibly ornate. Then we turned back for the car before stopping at Ernest Hemingway's house, which was gorgeous. We were running out of time before snorkeling, so we snapped a quick picture courtesy of a friendly tourist and were on our way!

Leah recommended Looe Key, a protected coral reef off the coast of Summerland Key that takes people out snorkeling around the reef. In retrospect, after getting to know Leah a bit, I should've known that this would be a more adventurous snorkeling trip than I originally imagined. I didn't realize we were going out into the ocean, but as the shoreline quickly shrank behind us, it became more clear what I had gotten myself into. Coupled with the fact that our boat captain told us we would see "anything and everything" (read: sharks) out in the water, by the time we stopped at our first point on the coral reef I was pretty nervous.

I hopped in the water with only a slight death grip on Billy's hand. After seeing hundreds of tropical fish immediately upon looking underwater, I was having the time of my life. We saw a ton of very cool fish, including a goliath grouper (think a 200 pound brown bumpy giant) AND a blacktip shark. It was a very small shark and was not swimming towards me, so it was all fun and not terrifying! The grouper actually started swimming at me, so I was legitimately more scared of that than the shark.

The water was beautiful and the weather was perfect. We also had some great company on the boat ride out (not including the idiot spring breaker, who in a fantastic stroke of justice got incredibly sea sick). 

I highly recommended the Looe Key Dive Center for anyone visiting the Keys! The staff is great and super friendly. 

Since Billy and I hadn't been together for Valentine's Day, we had a belated celebration that evening in downtown Key West. We avoided the crazier/more Spring Break-y sections of Duvall Street and opted for dinner at BlackFin Bistro, again on Leah's recommendation. Since I was in the Keys, I decided to expand my seafood palate and try out grouper. Our food and wine was amazing, and the tropical patio behind the restaurant was the perfect setting for dinner.

Great wine and a beautiful tropical setting.

Even better company!

We ended the evening at yet another recommendation of Leah's (she's three for three!), a dessert and drinks restaurant called Better Then Sex. If that doesn't sum up Key West's overall persona, I'm not sure what does! Their signature is chocolate rims on different drink pairings, as well as fantastic home-made desserts. Between the chocolate rimmed drinks and the peanut butter pie we tried to take down, we didn't end up finish everything in fear of going into a diabetic coma, but that's not to say we didn't try! 

The pie tasted like Reese's Peanut Butter Cup filling...and the crust was cookie dough!

We packed as much into two days as we could, so while our trip went by way too quickly, we had a blast. It was great to meet Leah in person after hearing about all the great work she does for Base Directory with Billy and Tony. Her boyfriend is in the Navy and is stationed at Key West, so unfortunately we didn't get to see him too much, but their house was the perfect tropical oasis for us to unwind at.

I've gone on long enough for now, so stay tuned for details of our nautical adventure with Billy's mom and stepdad! Billy didn't quite tell me we'd be anchored offshore, so that was an exciting surprise when we headed out early this Monday! Unfortunately, Billy headed home Wednesday, but I'll be back to Denver soon enough :)

Flying South for the Winter

Somehow, it's already been nearly a month since I got to Wellington. WEF has been so busy that the time has flown by. Nine weeks of horse show left seems like a long time, but I also can't believe I've already got three weeks finished.

I got to Florida much earlier this year (and in a much more organized manner!) and this is finally my second time being somewhere, so it's been nice to have a sense of familiarity instead of having everything be entirely new (which was the theme of 2013). I did get the opportunity to go to the Trump Invitational, which was on Palm Beach Island at the Mar-a-Lago. I was particularly excited about this because the average spectator there is slightly above my pay grade (someone casually dropped $40,000 to play golf with Donald Trump. But hey's it all for charity!) so it's a pretty rare opportunity for me to be able to go to an event like this. The Mar-a-Lago Club was beautiful (especially the dessert table) and despite ominous looking clouds, the day started out great.

I was in love with the decor for obvious reasons

Setting up for the poolside reception (I did not attend). The Mar-a-Lago is to the left, which in retrospect I should have probably included a photograph of.

Right on the water!

The best part of the "VIP" section, obviously

This was all great until it started raining. And I don't mean a light drizzle.

The rider in the video is Brianne Goutal, who trotted right into the ring after the break mid-way through the class in the middle of everyone saying "No one's going to go in...they'll wait out the rain." Wrong. Brianne is awesome.

Eventually it stopped raining but not before everything got pretty soaked (including myself). The event was still amazing despite the weather. Hunter Hayes performed before the class started and Ivanka Trump was there, looking just as fantastic as she does on TV and wearing awesome shoes. I also got pretty close to the Donald, and stood next to his wife for a few minutes. The jumping was also great--I couldn't believe how fast Kent Farrington and Todd Minikus went in the jump off as it continued to pour, and I was happy to see Kent win on his fantastic mare Blue Angel. 

After Trump, the real fun started as we kicked into high gear for WEF. This is our busy season, so to the say the least we've been quite busy. I'm still doing hunter and equitation coverage (jumping judged subjectively on either horse or rider for all un-horsey people) but also going over to the dressage show every week to cover their CDI (internationally ranked) competitions. The AGDF (Adequan Global Dressage Festival...so many acronyms!) has given me a new appreciation for dressage and I actually prefer being there sometimes-it's a lot more relaxing! We have big comfy couches, better Internet, and classical music playing softly all day. What's not to like?

And great views! It's a gorgeous facility.

For anyone interested, there are a ton more (and much better quality pictures) of both shows here:
AGDF Facebook Photo Album
WEF Facebook Photo Albums

If you're ever interested in anything I write, like the pages to see all the press releases!

I promise this is not a shameless plug for the social media pages I help manage for the shows, more that Lexey Hall,Elena Lusenti, and Sue Stickle take fantastic pictures. If you are interested in amateur photography, though, both shows have Instagram that I contribute to.
AGDF Instagram
WEF Instagram

Ok, that's enough rambling about the horse show for now! Apologies to anyone who does not care about horses and sat through this post hoping to get an update on Billy. He's enjoying life back in Denver, and had an awesome weekend with his dad skiing and showing him around Colorado. I'm really happy they got some father-son time and can't wait to see Billy and be back in Denver with him!

Hitting the slopes!

Slightly different scenery than what I'm working with in Florida!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Now that I no longer live with my parents, the holidays took on a whole new meaning for me this year since I was actually coming home for Christmas instead of just walking downstairs. As homesick as I was when I first moved to Colorado, I've totally fallen in love...but it's still hard being a plane ride away from my parents! Skype makes a big difference but it's not the same as seeing them in person and I was really excited to go home for Christmas.

Billy and I had found a cheap flight home, but unsurprisingly that meant it had a less than ideal arrival time...in Baltimore. We were originally slated to arrive at 1 am, which meant we still had time to book a SuperShuttle back to Bethesda and let my parents have a full night of sleep. That plan was completely derailed when our flight was delayed two hours and after arriving in Baltimore at 3 am, we were informed that the wait for a SuperShuttle would be "at least two hours." 

My dad has always insisted that I have a lifelong pass for calling him at all hours of the night for a ride (insert Daddy's Girl and only child comments here), so I reluctantly called the house to see if they could come rescue us from spending a night in the BWI terminal. After assuring my mom that I wasn't calling because of a medical crisis or other life threatening situation (remember, I'm an only child), my dad zipped up to the airport and saved us from being stranded by the baggage claim with the rest of the unfortunate souls who had been counting on SuperShuttle or similar transportation.

After spending the first day at home predominately catching up on sleep, we had an awesome time celebrating my birthday and Christmas. We broke tradition of going to Melting Pot to go downtown to see the Ellipse and eat at Old Ebbitt Grill in DC. I used to go to the Ellipse every year with my granddad when I was little, but I'd never seen it lit up at night and my mom and Billy had never gone at all. We caught a lucky break with the weather and smushed our way through the masses to take in the tree in all it's Christmas-ey glory.

Since Billy obviously spent Christmas with my family instead of his own, I decided to include some of his Christmas traditions with ours. Billy always went to church on Christmas Eve, so we headed to St. Dunsten's on Tuesday night for my first Christmas Eve service. Fortunately, St. Dunsten's caters to those of us who do not regularly attend church by providing everyone with essentially an idiot's guide to church that outlines all the song verses and even tells you when to stand/sit/kneel. 

The special part about going to St. Dunsten's is that my parents got married there (as did two of my aunts) and my granddad was a founding member of the church. Unfortunately, I'd only ever been to St. Dunsten's for his funeral service as well as for my grandmother's, so I was eager to form some happy memories at the church and feel close to some Cardon family history.

Once we got home, each of us opened a gift (another great tradition started thanks to Billy!) which of course helped ease the anticipation for Christmas morning. It was really fun incorporating both of our families' Christmas routines into the holiday and hopefully helped Billy feel like a little piece of home was with him.

Now that I'm (sort of) an adult, the most exciting part about Christmas for me is watching other people open the gifts I've gotten them. Billy's gift arrived at the last minute (8 pm Christmas Eve), and after coming very close to having a panic attack that he would have nothing to open, I was super excited to see his gift finally arrive. Shutterfly sure knows how to make you sweat! Last year, I got made him a photo album of all the fun things we did in 2012 and after spending 4 weeks making it, I opted to go high-tech this and get one made through Shutterfly. I also waited until December 17 to start planning, so that may have had something to do with choosing Shutterfly over my own crafting skills...

After the Christmas festivities were over, the three of us headed out to the C&O Canal, which runs along the Potomac River, to another special Cardon spot. I also went there all the time with my granddad (as did my dad with his entire family when he was a kid), so we like to go to the canal whenever I"m home to say "hi" to my Granddad and take in the Maryland scenery. As much as I go on about Colorado, Maryland is also incredibly beautiful in its own East Coast way (even if it makes me sneeze a lot).

I spent the rest of the week fitting in as much time as I could with friends and family, the dogs, Lizzie, and of course Billy. I'm headed south for the winter again to Florida, so I had to say goodbye to Billy when he flew back to Denver on Saturday. I found it very hard to tear myself away from Colorado when we left last week, and while I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity that Florida brings, I'll be counting down the days until I get to see Billy and Denver in April!

Thanksgiving in Paradise

Just when you thought Thanksgiving recaps were over...here's ours! Fashionably late. 

Billy and I had originally planned on spending Thanksgiving in Denver since flights back East do not come cheap and we already went back for the Naval Academy Reunion and are going to Maryland for Christmas. Billy's mom VERY generously offered us plane tickets to Florida to spend it with her, Billy's stepdad, and his sister's family. We jumped at the chance to spend the holiday with family instead of attempting to figure out something in Denver...plus who turns down a vacay to Florida?! We flew out late on Tuesday night and prepared ourselves for sun and serious relaxation.

For those of you spending the holiday in colder weather, it will probably make you feel better to know that it wasn't sunny and warm the entire time. Our first day was windy and cloudy, so since it's not exactly pool weather, we loaded up into the car and drove out to Sanibel and Captiva Islands for a day of exploring. Billy's favorite restaurant on Captiva is the Mucky Duck, so we headed out for lunch before stopping at the beach and a wildlife preserve (although we didn't see any wildlife...just trees. But very cool looking Floridian trees).

On the beach at Sanibel

 I've only ever seen Wellington and the Everglades, which are obviously wildly different from eachother. Wellington is highly manicured and tries really hard to look like the most perfect version of Florida. There's palm trees perfectly lined up along every street and all the buildings are stucco with that Spanish tile roofing. On Sanibel, it was nice to see a more natural version of Florida with "normal" vegetation and houses. Although there was at least one hot pink house, which is still probably fairly normal for Florida.

Billy's sister Aly and her family were due to arrive that night, so we enjoyed few hours of silence in the house once we got back from the beach. Spending the long weekend with them was a blast, and further reinforced that parenting is more work than you could ever imagine or put into words. 


Since the kids only see Billy (and now me) once a year, they are still at the age where they don't always remember us and are very wary of the new strangers sharing a house with them. Chase (the baby) mistook me for Aly their first night here and was horrified to discover he had walked over to the WRONG lady with brown hair.

Chase looking unsure of the large human holding him captive

Uncle Billy won over Rowan (who's three) with a round of soccer, but I was initially told (in no uncertain terms) that I was NOT invited. Fortunately by the end of the weekend we had successfully convinced both of them that we were actually pretty fun. 

It may have helped our case that we directly facilitate making Rowan taller and able to see things

We were also celebrating Chase's first birthday in addition to Thanksgiving. I'll let the pictures do the talking. We did a lot of binge eating, family bonding (which may or may not have included beer/wine), and Monopoly Deal games (Google it. It's awesome.).

Chase figuring out the intricacies of unwrapping gifts

Aly modeling Chase's new pirate towel. I realize it looks like Rowan's about to hit her, but I'm fairly certain he was just flailing his arms around in excitement over his fire chief towel.

Aly and Dan on Thanksgiving! Aly is digging into the infamous "Green Junk" which is some sort of Jello concoction Billy's family is obsessed with. I'm still working up the nerve to try it.

Me and Billy in front of the Thanksgiving spread (Turkey not pictured)

I almost forgot to add that I saw several manatees, including a baby one. So my life is pretty much complete.

To DC and Back: Washington International Horse Show

I finally did something interesting enough to blog about! I flew home to DC for a week to work at the Washington International Horse Show, which was a whirlwind of sleep deprivation and fun and excitement.

WIHS is held every year in the middle of DC (literally...the stalls are on the streets) and I went a bunch as a kid, so getting to work at this show was especially exciting for me. Despite being only a few miles from my parents, I only saw them for about 8 hours total. The show has a day and evening schedule, and with only one ring to run everything in, it goes pretty late! 

As tiring as it was, I can't complain too much because I did have a lot of fun. I haven't seen Jen (my boss) or Lauren (my co-worker) since Florida, so it was fun to get to spend some time with them. I also finally met all the people I'd been emailing back and forth with since the spring that work in the WIHS office. Everyone was really nice and welcoming, which was a huge relief.

While I haven't seen Jen and Lauren since April, it's been even longer since I've seen some of my fellow Maryland horse people! I ran into almost everyone I hadn't seen since leaving for Florida, including my old boss and a few people that used to ride or train at PHC with me. Even though I never made it out to the barn, it was almost just as good to see some familiar faces.

I was happy to realize that I'm starting to see familiar horse show faces too! There were a few people from WEF and Vermont at the show and it was so fun to get to work with them again.

When I was in Vermont, all I did was write, but at WIHS, my main responsibilities revolved around managing the press room. I also have been handling all the contracts the show has with media partners, which involves a lot of keeping track of what each side has done to fulfill the agreement. It sounds kind of boring, but I have a (not-so-secret) OCD streak, so I really enjoyed it. The best part was managing the Instagram and other social media accounts for the show. It was really fun getting to show the behind-the-scenes perspective of the horse show and interact with all the WIHS fans! Being a local (and harboring a childhood obsession with the show) made it easy to pick out what to capture.

I also got to escort a lot of media people around the show. There was a ton of TV crews and reporters that wanted to get footage of the show and interview riders. Saturday it was a non-stop stream of people!

One of the things about this job I'm most thankful for is that it has made me REALLY good at talking to strangers. Anyone who knew me as a kid (or teenager, honestly) reading that probably just fell out of their chair, because I was painfully shy as a kid. This job has forced me into approaching people I don't know and being able to effectively communicate with them. I definitely wouldn't have ever made all this progress on my own! 

The TV crews would want footage of ANY interaction people had with horses, so I was asking grooms, riders, parents, braiders, the shippers, stable managers, EVERYONE if it was okay if we could film them doing "x" with the horse. The most intimidating moment for me was when I had to go find Olympian and all around equestrian legend Margie Engle. For my boss and pretty much everyone I work with, walking up to people like her is no big deal anymore, so when my boss casually told me I had to go ask Margie for an interview, I tried to act like I was totally cool with that. I ultimately found her sitting with Todd Minikus (another equestrian legend) and managed to not make a fool of myself. Faking confidence gave me enough confidence to make it through (a lesson I learned when I took a job at a foxhunting barn after riding outside of the ring maybe twice in my life).

My mom had time to come out to the show during the week, which was a welcome relief during the day! I had a few hours off in the late afternoon, so I got to show her all around. She is responsible for my horse obsession, so being able to share the show with her was really special, plus I like getting to show her what I do when I'm at work! She came to visit in Florida too, and I love watching how excited she is to just take in everything the horse show has going on. We even got to just relax and watch a few rounds of hunters (boring to any non-horse people) and catch up.

I went back to my parents' house late on Sunday night after the show ended. I enjoyed some snuggles with the dogs before passing out and boarding my plane back to Denver the next day!

 

The show was another awesome learning experience and I was happy to catch a little bit of time with my parents, but I was equally excited to get back to Denver to see Billy! We're really starting to settle in and are still loving Denver....even as it starts getting cold!!