The Beast Sleeps

This post is for Nate Galpin. Nate lives in Sun Valley, Idaho and every summer when we go to visit, Nate asks me if Jarred has as much energy throughout the rest of the year as he does while he's in Sun Valley. Nate, an incredible athlete himself, finds it hard to keep up with Jarred during the summer months we spend in Idaho.

I admit, I can't even begin to keep up with Jarred and I consider myself an active person. Jarred has an infinite amount of energy that seems to increase if he's doing something he likes. This fall he and Nate rode in the Bend Big Fat Tour, an three day mountain bike ride through the hills around Bend. They rode 50 miles their first day, 70 their second and 20 their third. Jarred actually said he was tired after the ride, although I couldn't tell.

I really love the fact that Jarred is a go-go person, he's motivational and his desire to go has led us to have some great outdoor adventures and I've learned to really push my endurance level. But sometime in late fall when the biking slows down and kayaking hasn't quite picked up, Jarred starts to get restless. He starts planning bike rides for the following year, this year he asked me if I wanted to do so many rides that I quit saying yes, figuring every weekend I wasn't at a horse show would be filled with biking. Following the restless period, Jarred begins his hibernation mode. This year, he started off with an increased consumption of ice cream and beer. Once he built up his winter fat layer, Jarred was ready to bed down for what he likes to call the low point in his year. At this point, grouchiness sets in (from lack of exercise) as well as a desire to spend copious amounts of time on the computer or watching Netflix.

So Nate, yes, Jarred does slow down, but when he does it gets ugly and I yearn for the days when we can get outside and the Beast wakes up.

Sophie

This is Sophie's dad, Starlight's Wrangler. The guy has some dominate genes. Check out those white socks! Pretty much all of his offspring look exactly like him, including Sophie.

I've been waiting for a nice day to take some cool outdoor photos of Sophie but the wind has been ripping through the Gorge for what seems like forever. I finally braved the weather and got a couple outside shots. More to come.
Sophie is an awesome horse. She's a cool color (she's bay) and has flashy white socks. Not only is she pretty but she's smart! She's perceptive, learns quickly and has taught me a lot about training slowly and with a purpose. I always know when I'm confusing her, she's teaching me probably more than I'm teaching her.
Sophie is also the friendliest horse I've ever owned. She actually likes to be groomed, she's always curious about what people are doing and whether they have anything for her to eat, and she wants to be friends with every other horse she meets. Her favorite pasture pal is a three yr. old mare, Roxy. It's a nice treat to have a horse who has some social skills. Nic's not the most social horse and could take or leave human interaction.

Four Friends and a Sing-a-Long

For those (the only other two besides Carrie, Colleen and Gina who read my blog) of you who don't know my college friends, this is Carrie (in purple), Colleen (black without glasses) and Gina (black with glasses). Carrie, Colleen and Gina are my best college friends. Really, the best part of college for me were my friends. I got a decent education, I grew up a little but I met some great life long friends. I met Carrie and Colleen my freshman year and they were nice enough to befriend me although nearly half of their high school went to WSU and lived in our dorm. We spent hours and hours pulling pranks on each other and drinking. At the end of freshman year, Carrie and Colleen got all weird on me and decided to join sorority's. I was left without friends who I wanted to live with, which is where Gina comes into the picture. Gina was also left without a roommate for sophomore year...so we figured we'd take the great leap and live together (we knew nothing about each other, for all I knew Gina could have been some prostitute or wacky World of Warcraft freak). Luckily enough, everything turned out for the best including the fact that Gina also liked Carrie and Colleen!

The four of us had many great adventures throughout college, it's too bad blogs didn't exist when we were in college because I'm sure we'd have pages of stories and maybe even some drunk blogging! Now that we're all grown up, I don't live in the greater Seattle area, everyone else has kids and I busy myself with horses and biking, we don't see much of each other. In fact, it had been almost two years since the four of us had gotten together. So much time had passed that Colleen had had a second child, Carrie cut up all her credit cards and Gina had had her first child. A get-together was due.

Since Colleen should have been an event planner rather than a computer person who does things that I can't describe, she came up with the idea that we should go to a Sound of Music Sing-a-Long at the 5th Avenue theater in Seattle. I was under the impression that we all loved the familiar musical but Gina had never seen the movie. She was a good sport and didn't tell us this fact until we were at dinner. While Colleen, Carrie and I had all seen the movie too many times to count, we were not prepared for what attending a Sound of Music Sing-a-Long entailed.
1. It's a good idea to dress up as there's a great costume contest. This is no half-assed costume contest where one can put on a nun outfit and call it good. This is the type of contest where participants better be ready to be the character (ie, sing like Maria or the Vontrapp children or the baroness).
2. Most people who attend sing-a-longs can actually sing. I can't so I didn't sing during Edelweiss because I can't hit the high notes.
3. Men should only attend if they are gay OR seriously trying to impress a new girlfriend. The men who attended who were not in either of the latter categories, looked miserable.
4. Be prepared for a little heckling. I was worried this would ruin the movie but the heckling was good natured.
5. The movie is long, it gets longer when the audience is involved.
6. Yes, this is not a play, it's the movie with subtitles for the songs so the audience can sing-a-long. The other girls thought it was a play and were bewildered with the movie came on the screen. Carrie and Colleen recovered in time to sing "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria."

We're now waiting for a Grease sing-a-long to come our way. It was good to see the girls and good to finally have a photo of the four of us where we didn't have bad lipstick, bangs or look all pasty because we spent all our time in frat. houses.