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!!

Naval Academy Reunion Weekend in Annapolis

It's already been five years since Billy graduated from the Naval Academy, so we were headed to Annapolis this past weekend for his reunion!

I also had the bonus of being able to spend some time with my parents since we flew into BWI and they were nice enough to pick us up from the airport. I am really close to my parents, so it was great to be able to see them and have a few hours to hang out on each end of our trip.

We flew in late on Thursday night before heading out to Annapolis on Friday morning. It was freakishly hot this weekend, so we enjoyed walking around in the sun while I asked Billy a million questions about his time at school. I got to see the giant dining hall where the entire brigade eats at once right as they were setting up for lunch. It's pretty incredible to see the logistics that go into something that sounds as simple as getting sandwiches, chips, and Gatorade for everyone.

Next, we watched Noon Meal Formation (along with a TON of other people...there were a bunch of reunions in town!) before heading out to lunch with Billy's roommate from school and his wife. They are both Marines and are both getting out at the beginning of the year, so they are really excited to start a "normal" life together! They've been through deployments and being on opposite sides of the world from each other, so they're looking forward to settling down.

I complain about not feeling settled and moving around and being apart from Billy, but talking to them really put it in perspective that we are really lucky to never have to worry about being continents apart from each other or that someone awful could happen to the other while they're just doing their job.

We got to hang out with them a lot this weekend, which was especially great for Billy since he hasn't seen most of his classmates for years. Friday night was the reception, where I got to connect more faces with stories I'd heard! 

Saturday was the Air Force game, which nearly got canceled because of the government shutdown, despite the fact that it doesn't even require any government funding. The only bummer was that Air Force couldn't fly any of the cadets out to spectate, which was too bad since it's a huge tradition and gives everyone something to look forward to.

Fantastic football advice from a former Navy coach...

March on before the game. All the Midshipmen!

All smiles after a Navy win!

Like I mentioned before it was CRAZY hot this weekend, so we were happy Navy won after cooking in the sun for several hours. Was definitely not expecting to be that sweaty in October!

After the game, we got take out and headed over to one of Billy's teammates house, where I had fun talking to the fellow girlfriends in town for the reunion while Billy and his friends could talk about Navy things. It was fun to get some girl time in so Billy could enjoy catching up with all the guys.

It was an awesome weekend all in all. The only way to make it better was if I'd had time to go to the barn of course haha! Annapolis is beautiful and there is never a dull moment on the campus:

Oh, just where we parked our car.

Billy drove these at school!

Yep, just a casual helicopter landing and then taking off from the intramural field. All in a normal day at USNA!

Beginning to Settle In

The most exciting news of the week (besides the fact that my Chronicle of the Horse subscription has finally switched over to Denver) is that Billy's furniture is here!! This is big news for obvious reasons, but especially because it means we are no longer sleeping on an aero bed. THANK.GOD. This was the third week we'd spent on the aerobed, which I think is about two weeks and 6 days longer than you should ever sleep on one. My physical (and mental) health have been steadily deteriorating thanks to several sleepless nights this week.

A real bed!! Ignore the moving box.

Not only do we have a real bed, we have a dresser (no more clothes in piles on the floor!) a couch, and dishes (we have been working with two plates and two bowls for the last two weeks)! Our apartment is now somewhere between being homey and having moving boxes EVERYWHERE. Most of the boxes are at least empty now!

Yes, that is a bean-bag chair. With a footstool.

No shortage of boxes in the kitchen!

It's a huge relief to finally have almost everything...although we still need to find a kitchen table. We went on the hunt at IKEA last weekend (the great test of every relationship) and instead came home with a lamp. But the important part is that we didn't want to murder each other by the end of our trip. If you ever want to see an enormous amount of white people looking either hopelessly lost or furious with one another, go to an IKEA on a Saturday. We managed to go the wrong way and ended up missing the entire furniture portion of IKEA, so we actually made two laps around the entire store. Fantastic!

Anyways, Billy is in his second week of school now. He's found it to be a very intense program, but also highly valuable. I've met most of his classmates now and they're all super nice and much less nerdy than you would expect from a computer programming class.

Speaking of his great classmates, Billy and one of his classmates found a stray dog while on a coffee break this week (I heard Billy was quite heroic, tackling the dog before she could run into traffic!). Naturally, I was pulled in once they had to figure out what to do with the dog they found. 

Zoe! She is happily back with her owner now.

 
I hung out with her until Animal Control picked her up and then threw myself into putting her all over the Internet since she clearly belonged to someone. I ended up finding her owner on Craig's List and he picked her up the next morning! A happy ending that inspired me to apply to volunteer with the Denver Animal Shelter because their Animal Control Officers are AMAZING. The officer that picked the dog up from me actually called me to tell me the dog went home with its owner. How awesome is that?! 

In addition to trying to find some volunteer opportunities, I've been looking for a barn so I can get back in the saddle. Working at home means I have to work a little harder to start building a community here (and to remember to change out of my pajamas at some point during the day).

We've been busy (as always!) since we've gotten here, but we're loving Denver so far. There's always something to do here and now that it's stopped raining (which reminds me, I forgot to mention that we were very fortunate to not have ANY flooding in Denver!) we're enjoying the fall weather and happy to be feeling more moved in.
 


 

We are officially Denver residents!

Byron and Hansel and the Kansas sunset

We're in Denver! We have an apartment! We love it! Wait, there's so much to catch up on.

We got almost all the way through Kansas before calling it quits on day one of driving. Everyone talked a lot of crap about driving through Kansas, but I actually loved it! The first part is through big rolling hills and there's horses and farms everywhere (I now realize that "horses and farms" aren't nearly as big of a selling point to other people). It also helped that the sun was setting, which made everything look even more beautiful. I loved Kansas! Don't judge me.

We stopped for the night in Wakeeney and set out early the next morning to get through the last four hours of driving.

It is VERY windy in Kansas.

 We didn't see much of Wakeeney besides this sign since we stayed approximately 20 yards from the interstate. Billy dutifully drove the last part of Kansas, which is where it actually does get horrifically boring and flat. I was pretty surprised that after crossing into Colorado, this didn't change. We didn't even see mountains until we were driving into downtown Denver!

I was envisioning more mountains, less dead grass.

 It was also really cloudy, as you can see, so unfortunately I couldn't get any cool pictures of the Rockies as we drove in. Honestly, we could only see their outline it was so hazy outside. We didn't even see them until a few days later, when I screeched "OH MY GOD MOUNTAINS!!" while driving around looking at apartments. Confession: I definitely envisioned them still being snow-capped. In August.

Despite not being picturesquely covered in snow (there will be plenty of that to come, I'm sure), the Rockies did not disappoint, and neither did Denver.

We were staying with (read: sleeping on an aerobed in the living room) of one of Billy's future classmates, Simon. We didn't know anything about him besides that he was probably not a serial killer since he'd gotten into gSchool, but we were thrilled to find out that Simon is awesome! He and his roommate, Michael, were amazing hosts and we were SO lucky to get to stay with them. Without even knowing us, they welcomed us into their house, introduced us to their friends, and told us to stay as long as we needed and eat whatever we want! We could not have asked for a better introduction to Denver.

Simon and Michael's awesome house!

 As you can see, Simon and Michael live in a really cool, big old house. There are a lot of them in the neighborhood we were looking in, but we ultimately settled on a more up-to-date apartment (we really wanted A/C and a dishwasher). The week of apartment searching was exhausting emotionally and physically, but after four days of blood, sweat, and tears (predominately the last two-Denver's having a heat wave and the rental market is BRUTAL) we found the perfect place!

We loved staying with Simon and Michael, but we are even more in love with our new apartment! The furniture may actually be here soon, but even with just what we had in the car, it feels a lot like home already! 

 We toasted our first night with the wine we got in Indianapolis and settled into our aerobed, now in a different living room. But at least the living room is ours!