A Look Back and A Look Ahead

I did my blog recap of 2019 mainly for my own records, but I’m begging your indulgence for a bit more high level recap of what the year looked like for our little family, along with a look ahead to 2020.

Frankie

In 2019 I sat on Frankie without a helmet for the first time ever but dang the pics are cute tho

Well, you already know he was perfect. I started the year thinking that I would be getting back into full training for a move up to the 1.20m after the wedding. For various reasons this didn’t happen, and I’m so glad that we took that pressure off. Frankie spent the year with his confidence soaring at every outing and we built a stronger partnership than ever. He’s another year older, another year smarter, and his coat and muscling honestly look better than ever. He truly thrived this year and we learned so much about what makes him happy.

Looking forward to 2020, I have a couple goals with him. Firstly, I’d like to qualify for the VHSA Adult Eq finals. He was such a pro and got better with every outing in the eq this past year, and I’d love to keep building that skill set together. I don’t anticipate making it to Cap Challenge or anything like that, but the VHSA final is a great show down in Lexington and is straightforward to qualify for. Secondly, I’d like to qualify for Zone finals in the Low Adults. We have totally hit our groove in the 1m classes (you should see just how proud of himself he gets) and this would be a great goal to help focus our efforts. Lastly, I want to have fun with him. 2020 will be our fifth(!!!) show season together and I want to fully enjoy all the adventures, opportunities, and time together that we can. At this point my goals for Frankie are ever-flexible because the one that trumps all others is making sure he’s happy and healthy and enjoying his work. So far, so good!

School

Don’t judge I know it’s a bit of a cluster

I started up my online MBA program back in April, and as of year-end I’m officially halfway through the program. It has introduced a whole new level of balancing act as I tr to meet deadlines while working and traveling and competing and (maybe even sometimes) sleeping and eating. That being said, I’m SO glad I’m doing this, especially in the online format. I’m able to learn something in my course materials over the weekend and apply it at work on Monday. I get to learn new things, debate ideas with interesting people, stretch my skills in different ways. It’s incredibly stimulating.

Looking forward to the next year, I’ll be finishing my program in early October! I’ll be finishing with a dual concentration in Business Analytics (hello numbers my old friend) and Strategic Leadership (which is the first step of my bid for world domination). There’s just a marathon 18 week triple-term this spring, a summer term, and 7 weeks in the fall between me and that sweet degree.

Professional

I dressed up like a dragon at our staff retreat which was probably the most exciting part of the year

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t a huge year for me professionally. Not bad by any stretch, just nothing exciting to report. Worked on some cool projects, got some new coworkers, loved my boss a ton (she’s amazing). I spent a decent amount of time kinda bored, but it sure did pay the bills so I can’t shouldn’t complain.

I am planning to leverage this new degree moving into 2020. There are a few different avenues this can take and I’m hoping to be able to share which avenue this follows fairly early in the year. At the end of the day my motivation for career growth is to (1) be able to provide for my family and (2) not be bored so fingers crossed we can make both of these happen at the same time.

Personal

We had lots of adventures together and guys I like him an embarrassing amount. Giving myself a major high five for getting to be married to him.

Holy moly guys, 2019 was a very full year from a personal relationship standpoint. My best friend got married, my mom came for a visit, our friend kicked off a new career, BOTH my parents came for a visit, we made a surprise birthday trip to LA, my best friend announced her pregnancy (OMG HER LIL BELLY IS TOO CUTE FOR WORDS), we went to a family reunion, we visited my side in RI, we went on our honeymoon, we celebrated my dad’s retirement from the ANG, we went to Cali for a dear friend’s wedding, we went to MD for ANOTHER wedding, we went out to the country for a weekend with BOTH our sets of parents, celebrated Christmas up north, celebrated countless birthdays, went on lots of dates together, saw friends, and spent tons and tons of time with our friends and family. It was a lot of traveling and all worth it. We are incredibly blessed to have these people in our lives. It was also our first full year of marriage and it totally rocked. I like him even more than I did on our wedding day. I also found an amazing new hairstylist in 2019 and if any of y’all don’t think that’s revolutionary then you also need to find a new one.

Our slogan for 2020 is: “Y’all can come to us.” We’re hoping to cut down on some of the constant travel – but realistically, we’ll still be hopping on planes with some regularity. My hope is to be a bit more deliberate about protecting our time together especially as I power through the final terms of schoolwork. I’m trying to plan a vacation adventure for the two of us later in the year as a pseudo-graduation present to myself. Whatever we have going on, it’ll be a ton of fun.

Overall

My most wonderful boys ❤

2019 felt like a year of big change and a year of staying still all at once. My goals changed, my balance changed, my perspectives changed. But I was in the same job, same apartment, with the same incredible support system. There were lots of wins to celebrate and I learned a lot about what the people around me need from me and what I need from myself.

I think 2020 will be a year of greater change, with a lot less staying still. I don’t really know what that looks like yet, which used to scare me. I like to have a plan. But I have the world’s best partner to share the highs and lows and make me laugh, and I have the world’s most wonderful horse (who also constantly makes me laugh). I’m not so worried with those two in my corner.

2019 Highlights

To close out 2019, here’s a little journey down memory lane of what we talked about together over the course of the year!

January

Clipped Francis is adorable my goodness

I decided that 2019 wasn’t my year to set goals, but to enjoy the partnership Frankie and I have built. I talked about our focus on making the smaller jumps count, got back in the saddle after rehabbing from a small injury, celebrated my blogiversary, and was grateful for training rides even in the off season. We closed out the month by giving into peer pressure to plan a return to WEC and discussed the finances of showing and qualifying at the higher levels.

February

Such a treat to learn from this big lady

I bid a tearful farewell to my trusty Jeep and made the decision to pursue my MBA. Frankie had a minor heel grab that led to some adorable hand walks, and he got to recover while I spent a week in Ohio with a lovely mare!

March

Legging back up meant a much beleaguered Francisco

I got more into detail about the rides I got at WEC and how different Belle was from Francis, did a day-in-the-life post that made me tired just looking at it, and started legging Frankie back up. I mused on why I love the jumper ring so much, talked about how I prioritize horse expenses, and got REAL sappy about three full years with my Best Boy.

April

SWEET. SWEET. ANGEL. BOY.

Frankie and I showed together for the first time since the previous summer! (And obviously he was perfect). We had to re-tool our show season when Upperville changed their prize list, but I also got to apply my student mindset to training with great results. I shared my favorite exercises to do with Francis, got to share my wedding photos with y’all, and did a fun Q&A via Instagram.

May

The sweetest derby horse to ever exist

Francis took care of me during a busy time and really pushed home just how broke he is these days. We also made it to a show where we did the eq and our first USHJA National Hunter Derby!!! He was seriously too precious for words.

June

Sincerely the happiest eq pony to ever be born

Things were slow and lazy as the summer kicked off and I had to balance my schedule. There was a fun 25-question blog hop we jumped on, and we had a BLAST continuing our eq/derby outings at Loudoun Benefit. Francis continued to shine in the new rings.

July

I somewhat conquered my fear of riding outside the ring

I shared my infinite wisdom on how to achieve perfect balance (psych lol) and Frankie felt great about his work. It was a crazy month of travel and school and work and all that life brought so the blog was quiet, but Francis was a wonderful constant.

August

Low key a real-life brontosaurus

I shared what I’d been up to outside the barn and made some show plans. I did a monster breakdown of the different ways we’ve approached our training over the years, answered twelve tough questions in a blog hop, and filled up our fall with exciting outings.

September

Beastly boy had infectious confidence stepping back into the jumper ring

Frankie laughed at our calendar by somehow maiming himself, but thankfully mended quickly and without complication. Poor guy then had an awful day (seriously wasn’t his month!) and I explained why I’m ok with being a mean mom (wow, this REALLY was a rough time for Francis). I made a plan to get us both back into fighting shape and replaced my helmet with a HUGE upgrade. We stepped back into the jumper ring and Frankie could not have been more professional – he even won us our first division tricolor.

October

Honestly how I felt most of October

I talked about how I approach our warmup at shows and gushed about my perfectly fancy un-fancy horse. School was kicking my butt at this point so the blog took a backseat but we had adventures that I covered the following month!

November

Love. Bug.

I begged your pardon for some downtime and announced Ocala 2020(!!!). I FINALLY got around to recapping our Olympic clinic (which was kinda eh) and our last show of the season (which was lovely and wonderful and OBVI perfection – with another tricolor to boot). I realized I have no idea how old my horse is – nor do I care – and took him for granted.

December

Santa’s cutest reindeer!

I recapped our 2019 show season (seems funny to include a recap in a recap) and went absolutely flying in a lesson where Frankie jumped out of his skin. We got to participate in Secret Santa and Frankie felt festive. We closed out with a look back on the last decade!

It was a year full of changes and growth, full of fun adventures, and full of wonderful sweet times with my family and friends and favorite horse on the planet. Cheers to a fantastic 2019, and cheers to an even better 2020!

 

2010s Photo Challenge

I’m loving the walk down memory lane we’re all doing as we get psyched for a brand new decade. It’s been a heck of a 10 years for me, so it was wild looking back at old photos to figure out what to share!

2010 was the year I finished my freshman year of college and got ready for my sophomore year. No ponies in sight!

2011 closed out sophomore year and I spent the summer taking extra classes to prep for junior year. Still nary a pony to be found, still an unflattering shade of blonde.

2011

2012 was the end of junior year looking to senior year, with some cool trips and a cool internship down in DC. Sadly, still no ponies.

2013 was the big graduation year! It was time for new adventures down in Virginia with a big girl job and a big girl apartment. This was the last pony-less year (thank goodness).

Enter Addy in 2014! I started lessons again, got into a half lease, and felt more at home than ever. I also met my husband in 2014, but he’ll get his own post sometime 🙂

2015 was the year of exploring with Addy: I got back in the show ring for the first time in almost 10 years, we tried XC for my first time ever, and I learned to be confident and comfortable in the tack again.

2016 brought me my most perfect Francis. It was our get-to-know-you year with a few shows and adventures, and he was happy and wonderful from the get-go.

2017 was our breakout year. We qualified for Zone Finals and Team Finals, we got some great ribbons, we did our first 1.15m at Upperville with a clear round. Despite our greenness to the new level, he made it all fun.

2018 was our honing year. We got sharper, we schooled bigger, we were more precise, we trained harder. He absolutely thrived and I’m (still) incredibly proud of his work ethic and sweetness with all the new adventures.

This photo truly captures our 2019. We’re old friends and we know each other so well, we learn and get better together all the time, and we straight up have a fantastic time. 

I can’t wait to see what the next decade brings for me and the Frankfurter!

Merry Christmas!

A very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Frankie, me, and Nick to all of you!

the merriest blep! PC – K. v.Ek

 

Secret Santa

We all know and love Tracy over at The Printable Pony for organizing the best Secret Santa every year, and this year has been wonderful! It’s been so fun seeing everyone sharing and reaching out to new people.

And get presents. We all like presents.

In a wonderful twist of fate, I received my gift on my birthday itself! A little holiday cheer, a little birthday cheer, and a whole lot of happiness. A huge thank you to Kristen over at Stampy and the Brain for such thoughtful gifts!!

OK first of all the puppy wrapping paper is the cutest possible way to wrap, amiright?!

It’s tough to see in this lighting, but this is my absolutely favorite navy!! I’ve been lusting after one of these surcingle belts for a while now, and it’s even cooler that it comes from a fellow blogger and horse girl: Rachel over at For Want of a Horse.

Y’all know how obsessed I am with socks, and this pair is too cute. I think these are going to be my new lucky show socks – there’s something about getting dressed for battle (in an adorable way) that brings good juju.

And of course Kristen didn’t forget Frankie! He absolutely adores all things peppermint flavored, and these are the perfect size for our post-ride carrot stretches. He’s going to be one happy camper!!

Thank you Kristen for a ray of sunshine in the form of a package, and happy holidays to all!

Houston We Have Liftoff

Of all the rides I’ve had on Frankie, this is the one that I truly wish we had video of. Not because it was a paragon of correctness and grace. Not because it highlighted all of our natural strengths.

No. I want video for the pure comedy gold.

Our exercise this past week has been a series of trot-in one-strides, inspired by an exercise Joe Fargis has recommended in the past. It was set as so:

OMG we haven’t had a powerpoint course diagram in 5ever right?!

The full exercise was simply weaving across the ring from A to B to C to D. The first jump in each was always a crossrail, but the second jump went progressively higher. Seems very simple and straightforward, right? Right. It actually is a very straightforward exercise.

But here’s the cool part about it: since everything is trotting in, your horse cannot rely on speed to make it out over the second jump. The striding is set fairly short, so speed actively makes it more difficult (and cheating to allow more space by getting crooked was Not Allowed). The only way to make it out is to power off the hind end.

So yeah, we were basically doing super-sets of squats with our horses with this exercise.

The first time we did this earlier in the week, we ended up putting the back jumps up to roughly 3’ish to encourage a bigger effort, then backing the height back down to make sure we were still able to stay super straight and careful even at lower heights. It was a great way to work on strength for our horses and correctness of position and placement for us riders.

We’re not at the comedy part yet.

Unrelated he’s just a camera ham

The second time we did this was during a lesson I had with our juniors. It started out similarly – working to keep Frankie straight through a combination of leg and opening rein as needed, staying out of his way when he wanted to stretch over the oxers, overall building on what we had done previously.

But you know what the juniors do? They jump big.

So Trainer jacks the back jumps up to whatever height (3’6″? more? no clue but it looked real big) and has us go again. Quick reminder that I haven’t jumped that height in a super long time but I was thinking not a big deal, I know my horse and he’s a pretty smooth ride and I definitely haven’t forgotten everything about how to jump bigger.

Turns out that I’m really quite comfortable getting to bigger jumps at speed.

What do you get when you take away that speed, add extreme power in the hind end, and jack the oxer up real big?

HOUSTON, YOU GET LIFTOFF.

I swear zero part of me was making any sort of contact with Frankie. I was completely airborne. He went up, I went up with him, and then I KEPT GOING UP. Launched into the stratosphere. The air started getting thinner. I had time to reflect on all the choices that had carried me into the rafters.

I somehow managed to land on top of my horse as he calmly and quietly cantered away. AND PROCEEDED TO DO THIS 5 MORE TIMES.

“Mahm. Suck less.”

On the plus side, I very much stayed out of his way so he was never punished for putting in such a powerful effort. On the other side, the reason I stayed out of his way was because I was nowhere near him. There was a solid 6″ of air between me and my saddle.

Trainer was cracking up laughing, I was cracking up laughing (while desperately trying to keep my stirrups), and Frankie was boppin’ around wondering what was so funny.

From the way it felt and the way Trainer described it, Francis basically gave us a really incredible hunter-style jump. You know the kind you see in a derby, where the horse is not moving quickly and then they just LAUNCH super powerfully over the big jump. And then they land back in the same quiet rhythm. It’s why I don’t get annoyed at the big hunter riders for having less-than-perfect equitation – that type of explosive jump out of that quieter pace is BONKERS difficult to stay with.

And now I have first hand experience of this and no thank you I have zero aspirations to do any big hunter classes ever in my life good lord that is INSANE.

I hit the gym with our new barn manager (who I’m slightly obsessed with HI COLLEEN I KNOW YOU’RE READING THIS YOU’RE/WE’RE INCREDIBLE) a few hours later because wow ok Francis if you’re going to work that hard I gotta step up my game to match.

Next time I’m bringing a hang glider to assist in my return to earth.

LITERALLY HOW ARE YOU SO SWEET AND PERFECT ALL THE TIME

Our 2019 Show Season

It’s a bit early to do a full yearly recap, but I’d love to do a brief review of what 2019 looked like in the show ring!

February: WEC, OH

 

Loved this sweet mare!

I opted to leave Francis at home for the week, and leased an amazing mare to do the Low Adult Jumpers with. She was a great teacher and it was a fun and satisfying re-entry to the show ring after a 7 month(!) break. I really enjoyed the chance to learn from a horse that was so been-there-done-that and it was nice to stretch myself to adapt to a very different type of ride.

Results: clean schooling rounds, 5th in our jumpoff round and 2nd in the speed with a 3rd in our classic.

March: Showplace Spring Festival, MD

Big Man earned some pretty colors ❤

I got back in the ring with my favorite boy! We shipped in and did a couple 0.90m classes to knock some rust off and Frankie turned out to have no rust at all. This was a low key and fun outing to build confidence for the rest of our season.

Results: 3rd in our speed round and 7th in our jumpoff round.

May: Blue Rock Classic, PA

 

First time in the medals since I was a kid, and Frankie acted like he does it every day!

For the first time ever, we didn’t do a single jumper class at a show! This was our first foray into the adult medals (including tests) and we even tried our hand at our first hunter derby. We were certainly more competitive in the eq than in the derby, and it was a BLAST trying some new things with the Frankfurter.

Results: 4th in the Ariat, 3rd in the Dover Adult Medal, 6th in the MHSA Adult Medal, and tons of fun in the USHJA National Hunter Derby.

June: Loudoun Benefit, VA

THE BRAIDS. THE FAKE TAIL. THE GIANT EARS. I LOVE ALL OF IT.

Continuing our streak of new things, we played in the medal/derby rings again at this show. It was a great chance to finesse our equitation rounds and Francisco showed up and excelled at that type of precision. We also took the high options in the derby for a score that I was really proud of.

Results: 8th in the VHSA eq on the flat, 4th in the VHSA Adult Medal, and lots of fun again in the derby.

September: Piedmont Jumper Classic, VA

Literal heart eyes for my most handsome creature

Returning to those same showgrounds after a little summer break, we stepped back into the jumper ring for a full weekend of the Low Adults. He was forward, eager to the jumps, landed turning, and was simply beyond professional. We have fun in the other rings, but Frankie clearly knows the job superbly well in the jumper ring.

Results: 7th in our jumpoff round, 1st in our speed, and 3rd in our stakes for division champion.

October: WIHS Regional, MD

This guy makes literally everything fun

Frankie and I tried out the AA hunter division for the first time! We certainly don’t have the movement to excel in that ring (I mean, no horse can be good at EVERYTHING) but Frankie was a winner in my heart with his sweet attitude and gentleness. The next day we zipped back over to the jumper ring, where we put the pedal to the metal for some great rounds. It was a perfect way to end the year with versatility and challenge.

Results: king of my heart in the AA 18-35 Hunter O/F classes, 6th in our jumpoff class, 1st in our speed for division reserve champion.

I can’t believe that this show year was so full! I fully expected to have to cut way back on showing when I went back to school in the spring. I’m beyond grateful for my support system that made this all possible – my trainers who kept Frankie fit and ready to go every when I couldn’t get out as often, my husband who took care of things at home when I was away, my classmates that put up with conference calls from hotel lobbies, my boss who gave me the flexibility to work from the barn when needed. It hasn’t always been easy balancing it all and I’m so fortunate to have this kind of help along the way.

Cheers to a fantastic and full 2019 season, and cheers to all that’s next with my Very Bestest Boy!