An Extreme Weekend

Friday evening, a very handsome chauffeur, taxied four very excited young ladies and me to the theater in Jacksonville. Patrick and I gave the girls Riverdance tickets as part of their Christmas gifts from us and the big day had finally arrived. Patrick's sister was supposed to go with us, but had a last minute change of plans, so one of Alyssa's friends joined us. We got all dressed up; after all, how often do WE get to see Broadway on Tour? We didn't intend to look like we were going to a funeral, it just sorta happened that way. :-)

When purchasing tickets, as it clicked around Ticketmaster and online diagrams of the theater, I had agonized over where we should sit. I finally decided on balcony seats so we could see the choreography from above. Overall, I was pleased with the decision but did realize how much I love costuming. And we were just too darn far away to really see details of the costumes. My only disappointment of the evening.

I am possibly the only person to cry at Riverdance, but after watching young (inexperienced) dancers for so long, it just brought tears to my eyes to see everything executed so perfectly; no spacing problems, no one lagging behind, no one looking at their neighbor to see what to do next...just perfection on a scale I couldn't even imagine before seeing it in person. And the music and singers...they just took my breath away.

So after a Friday evening of high culture (at least for South GA girls like us), we transitioned to Hannah's second horse show of the spring. Of course it had to be rainy and nasty....completely miserable. We went from lookin' like a fashion show on Friday night to drown rats on Saturday.

Hannah competes in two classes (Hunter Pleasure and Hunter Equitation) in which she placed 6th in her first show a few weeks ago. She was hoping to improve how she placed, and boy did she, in spades. She took 4th place in Hunter Pleasure (how pleasurable does the horse look to walk, trot and canter) and 2nd place in Equitation. Equitation, you ask, what is that? Basically it's making the horse ride in a pattern (walking, reversing, trotting, cantering, etc) of the judge's selection. You don't know what you will be asked to do until arriving at the show...so it becomes a test of memory as well as riding. It turns out Hannah was one of two girls to get the pattern just right...and despite her not getting the horse out of a trot into a canter fast enough, because she got the pattern right, she placed second.



Waiting to warm the horse up in the arena.

Poor girl...her dad's golf jacket was soaked before the show even started. Thankfully her riding instructor let her borrow a helmet cover, so her brand new velvet show helmet didn't get soggy the first day it was worn.






Quite exciting to hear #274 called out in second place.

Here she is, all lined up waiting to begin her Hunter Equitation competition.