Paradise!

 Today we went to Paradise to go XC schooling. I left the house at 6:30 to pick up Laura and Llama. We got to Paradise about 9:30. And it was so hot and humid. And Lellie has sheep now! So there was a little excitement for a moment. :) But luckily Dan settled once the sheep stopped making noise. He wanted to go see them because he could only hear them. But they were hiding. So we headed out and warmed up and got started. It went great! Dan was pretty darn super over everything. We jumped most of the novice stuff. We were tempted by some of the training stuff too. :) He felt good. He was in front of my leg and game. We had one table that I got slack on and forgot to close my leg and encourage becaues... he was in front of my leg. He was fine, but he chipped. When I close my leg, he's much bolder and gamer. 

Jacel was wanting to jump a training picnic table and said so. I said "I'll do it if you do it"! Hee hee. She laughed and said she was super competitive... I was like "Yeah, me too.. that's why I dared you!". So then she did it. On the PONY! Which meant I had to. But if they could do it.. surely my 17 hand horse could. And we did. :) Then we went over to the corner and the two brush fences and the funky awful fence with the weird ground line. I told Jacel she should do the funky fence and roll back to the corner. Hee hee. I was sassy! But she did. And they rocked it. So then she made me do it. Which... I was itching to. Only we started with the corner as a left hand corner. And Dan drifts right. I knew he was drifting right... I was closing my right leg as hard as I could. BUT... he drifted too far and bailed. He was so far right that the fence was HUGE. And he politely slammed on the brakes and rolled his shoulder, so I basically tucked and rolled right off of him onto the fence. I landed on my butt/back and it did not hurt one bit. Like I said, he just rolled me right off onto it. Hee hee. I got back on and we came from the other direction. He glanced off it the first attempt. He jumped, but didn't actually jump the jump.. more off to the side. So then Jacel reminded me to just ride it like a table... and then we did it. So then we did the other direction and got that fine too. :) Yay! Then we did the brush fences. And I made him pop over the bendy line and he totally could have stopped at the second because I surprised him. But he went! What a good boy! We then moved on to the sunken road. The ground lines weren't mowed so we couldn't do the big one. And then we did one other table and decided to be done. All the ponies were SUPER!

Then Margaret said she wanted to gallop. I said that we would join her. But the others decided they wanted to also, so off we went. Dan was like "oh hellsno you bitches ain't beating me" so he got ahead of them. :) hee hee. It was fun. At least I could stop him at the end though. So then we saw a sharkstooth and I thought.. maybe I should jump that. Jacel told me to do it. So we galloped towards it and then suddenly Dan was slinging to the side and I almost fell off... twice! There were dogs on the other side of the fence and he heard them and spooked. It was like 5 strides before the actual fence! Doh. But I also realized HOW big that fence really was... like training level for sure.. maybe even prelim. So I decided today wasn't the day given the dogs and such. And we jumped another baby version of it and then called it a day. 

We did take them to the lake and let them splash around and sit in the water for 20 minutes to "ice" their legs. :) It was a really fun day with fun friends! And I'm so proud of the pony. He was super and game and tried really hard!