Monthly Archives: July 2017

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KY Vacation Days 8, 9, & 10

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On Friday morning, Vicki’s team gathered up at 0700 to verify their scores from the previous day.  The worked as a group to polish their boots prior to the final phase of competition, Barn Phase.  They entered the final day in 1st place, but with only a 3 point lead on the 2nd place team.

Polishing boots before Barn Phase

Once they were done with Barn Phase, we spent some time watching the stadium jumping for eventing in the Rolex Arena and Jr Games final round while we waited 9+ hours for awards.

We visiting the Saddlebred Museum (King is a 1/2 Saddlebred) and enjoyed the air conditioning.  Vicki hung out with her friends from her team since they all live about 3 hours away.  She spent time during the week trading pins from her Region with kids from other parts of the country.

Once it was time for awards, all the Quiz teams went into the covered arena together.

All the teams waiting for awards

Alexis is Vicki’s best friend and also in the same Club.  She was on a different team from Vicki and was the highest scorer on her team, helping them get 5th place.

Vicki’s team wasn’t able to hold on to the 3 point lead.  In the end, they got 2nd place, but were all smiles as they collected red ribbons, silver medals, and a pair of boot socks.

After team awards, individual awards were announced.  At the Regional Rally to qualify for Championships, Vicki had the highest individual score.  She again led her team and won 5th overall in her Junior D division.

2nd place team, 5th place overall individual

Now that she has done Champs in Quiz, she wants to ride next year in Games, Show Jumping, or Eventing.

We decided to just drive on home and not do any sightseeing on the way back, so days 9 and 10 don’t have any pictures.  Overall, it was a good vacation and we enjoyed visiting Lexington.  I am thankful my parents were able to come up from Alabama to join us and spend time with the kids.

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KY Vacation Days 5, 6, & 7

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Tuesday morning we started the day with a trip to Keeneland, a large racetrack in Lexington.  We chose to do the self guided tour because Vicki was “tired of listening to guides talk so much” after the Mammoth Cave tour.  The girls in particular were very happy to watch some horses being exercised while we sat in the grandstand.  The kids also enjoyed walking around the barns.  Vicki declared her intent to move to Lexington so she could exercise race horse, even if she doesn’t get paid.

Anna then dropped off Vicki and I at the KY Horse Park to check in for Pony Club Championships where we met up with the rest of her Quiz team.  Anna then took Alex and Amanda to the KY Railroad Museum where they met up with my parents, who drove up from Alabama.  The group spent some time touring the museum and went for a ride on the steam train.

They all then returned to the Horse Park to watch the opening ceremonies.  Vicki joined the rest of the delegation from our Region (New York Upper Connecticut) as they walked into the Rolex Arena.  The teams all lined up to spell “USPC” in the arena.  41 of 42 Regions are participating in the event from across the whole country, including Alaska.

When the ceremony was done, we headed to Cracker Barrel for dinner.  We enjoyed our food and took some time to play a few games of checkers before heading back to the hotel.

On Wednesday morning, we headed in to the park to get an early start.  Vicki had her written exam at 8 and Megaroom from 3-5.  In between, she spent time hanging out with her team and studying for the next phase of Quiz.  I enjoyed watching some Eventing Dressage while the team took written exams.  While they studied in the middle of the day, the rest of the family watched the Flintstones (NYUC Senior Games team) play mounted games, toured the Horse Park Museum, and watched a few other things.

After things wrapped up, the kids went swimming and I got a good run in.  While it was around 90, I needed the break for 7 miles of personal time.

On Thursday, we were back at the Horse Park by 7:00

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KY Vacation Days 3&4

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Sunday started with Breyerfest 2017.  We had never been to Breyerfest (and I’m not convinced we need to go back, but the girls disagree).  It really is a bunch of kids (and adults) getting together to buy and sell Breyer horses.  The girls found some new Breyer horses they couldn’t live without and had to spend allowance on.  Alex joined in with Vicki, Alexis, and Amanda in hand painting some Stablemates (very small Breyer horses).  Amanda got her face painted, but it only lasted an hour or so before we had to wash it off due to a reaction.

Alexis and Vicki spent almost 2 hours in a tent learning how to make bridles and lead ropes out of tiny beads and sewing thread.  While they did that, we watched some riding and driving demos. Alex and Amanda both took a try on the mechanical bull.  We also watched some “splash dogs” which were dogs jumping into a pool of water for distance.  The dogs loved it.  At one point, Alex got called up to help hold one of the dogs who was very excited about doing his jumps.

Once we had our fill of Breyerfest, we went back to the hotel for a break.  Later, we hiked almost 2 miles to Cold Stone for some ice cream.

On Monday, we had breakfast and hit the road.  We headed South to Mammoth Cave National Park.  The Visitor’s Center is very well put together and we spent almost an hour learning about the history of the park and the caves.  The 405+ miles of mapped cave make Mammoth the largest cave in the world.  There are estimates that another 600 miles remain to be mapped.  We did the “Domes and Dripstones” tour which was very interesting and included both large open areas and unique formations within the caves.

We learned a lot of interesting tidbits during the tour, although Vicki felt it would have been more interesting to just hike and look without the guide talking so much.

We ended the day with some pizza at the hotel and a study session for Alexis and Vicki.  After all, we are here for a competition.  Check-in is tomorrow!

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KY Vacation Days 1&2

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We are officially on vacation!  Back in the winter, we told Vicki that if she qualified for Pony Club Championships in Quiz, she could attend Champs and 1 day of Breyerfest.  Well, she did and we are now on our vacation in Lexington, KY to hold up our end of the deal.  We found a gas station with a porta-potti and managed to avoid a crisis, however, traffic was normal (read crappy) and it took a while to get through NY.  In fact, we traveled about 400 miles for the first day on the road and only averaged 41 mph on the roads  – that’s actual cranked car time, not including stops.  Obviously, we encountered a lot accidents, traffic jams, heavy rain, and in general other bad driving conditions.

Since we were not in a rush for our trip, we decided to do something fun each day to break up the driving.  The activity for Day 1 was Hershey PA.  We stopped off and did the “Factory Tour” and “Chocolate Tasting Experience”.  The kids enjoyed it and it wasn’t too bad, although we didn’t buy anything from the exorbitantly priced store.

When we made it to Maryland, we stopped at the rest area and Fireflies were out.  The kids enjoyed a few minutes of chasing them around the grass before climbing back in the car.  Here’s a video Anna took of the kids running around after the Fireflies.

We stopped for the night at almost 10pm at Holiday Inn in Hagerstown, MD. The kids were happy to hit up the pancake machine this morning before we continued on the journey.

West Virginia!

Today’s stop was at the Clay Center in Charleston, WV.  The Clay Center is part of the Blue Star Museum program which gives free entry to military and it has a science center and art museum.  The kids enjoyed exploring the science exhibits and climbing on the 3 story climbing sculpture.  The exhibits were well designed to target kids, interactive, and engaged across the age spectrum.

Vicki was looking forward to the art exhibits, which was only a small area, but satisfied her desire.  Everyone had to choose their favorite piece of art and explain to the family why they chose that one.

After our break, we continued the drive to KY!

 

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Playing Catch Up

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Summers are always busy and as the kids get older, that becomes an understatement.  It’s been over a month since we have posted, so I’m going to lump a lot of different happenings from the last 5+ weeks into a single post.

The kids finished up the school year and are ready to move on.  This was the first year back in public Vicki was 1 of 3 6th graders at Griswold Middle School who were tested to skip 7th grade Math.  None of them passed the test with a high enough score to actually skip 7th grade Math, but Vicki was close.  She finished the school year with all A’s.  Alex (who is now 14!) has decided to start his freshman year of high school at Griswold High School in the fall. 

We have been riding a lot. All 3 kids did Pony Club camp. Alex took Dakota, Vicki on Duchess,  and Amanda on Huey. All 3 learned a lot and had fun. Here are some videos from camp.

Amanda and Huey

Alex and Dakota

Vicki and Duchess
We did another hunter pace and in general, things have been busy with horses. Here are a few pictures.