Alberta Trip Continued...

On Monday Sara and I went for a nice long ride on her and John's horses. I really like the horses that they have right now. They are both fun and easy to ride and very well behaved. Later in the day we went for another ride with Sierra and her cousing Emma with us. Sierra is on her pony, Sergeant Pepper. Sara is on her horse, Bandit. Emma and I are on Sara's mom's horse, Silky. John's horse, Copper Topper is in the background. Sara is leading Emma and I and I am leading Sierra. I was having trouble controlling Silky and Sergeant Pepper at the same time so Sara took my reins. I was pretty uncomfortable at first to not have any control over the horse that I was on, especially when there was a child on with me. But nothing went wrong and I was able to relax and accept my lack of control after a few minutes.
Tuesday morning I woke up early to drive Sara and John to the airport. They were heading to California for a conference and then were going to spend some time with one of Sara's good friends who lives there. After dropping them off I drove up to Edmonton in their van. I was so tired though that I ended up having stop at a roadside turnout to have a short nap. I felt much better after my nap and was able to make it to Edmonton safely. Once there I met up with my friend Chris. I had a good time visiting with her and catching with her. It had been a couple of years since we had seen each other or talked. Far too long. Hopefully we will stay in touch a bit better from now on. Tuesday evening I drove back to Red Deer. I stopped in to visit David and Cheryl Coates. I lived with them for a month or two about 2 years ago. I also kept Sugar at their place for a few years and rode some of their horses for them. I had a great time visiting with them and am so glad that I was able to see them while I was back this time.
After leaving their place I went to my friend Michelle's house where I stayed until Saturday morning. We spent Wednesday and Thursday together. We had considered going camping but ended up just staying at her place. It was really nice and relaxing. We didn't do a whole lot but I think that that was what I needed. We watched some movies, we lied in her backyard watching some guys roof a house, we went to the beach (where I sunburnt my stomach, legs and back) and we did a tiny bit of shopping. Oh, and we went for ice cream a couple of times. It was really good.
On Friday I drove back to Edmonton for Chris and Geoff's wedding. It was another beautiful wedding as you can see from the pictures. They had the wedding and reception at the Hotel Macdonald, where I was told that they Queen has stayed. The food was amazing at the reception. There was so much to choose from. I couldn't possibly have even attempted to try everything.




On Saturday I stopped at David and Cheryl's place again in the morning. They were having a dressage schooling show at their place. I was able to see Cheryl's new horse as well as many people that I know in the horse industry. I still can't believe how many people and things I was able to squeeze into only 8 days. And I still felt refreshed and relaxed. I feel so blessed to know so many wonderful people and to have had a chance to see them all and spend some time with them.
The first picture above is of me in front of my much appreciated wheels for the week. It was so nice to have Sara and John's van to use to do all of my traveling around. It gave me so much freedom. The next picture is of Michelle and Kelly in front of Michelle's house. And then Michelle, Kelly and I. The last is of Sierra with her hair curled. I went back to Calgary a bit early on Saturday to spend some more time with Sierra. I curled her hair and painted her toenails and then we spent a couple of minutes practicing riding her two-wheeled bike. She's getting pretty good at it.


Sara's dad, Andy, and Sierra drove me to the airport. The first picture here is of the back of Andy's head as he's driving. I gave Sierra my camera because she wanted to see the pictures of Chris' wedding and she also wanted to watch the video of Winston that is on my camera. After she was done she took all of the above pictures, as well as more. She then tried to make me promise that I wouldn't erase them. If you are wondering what they are the second one is Sierra's legs, the third is my suitcase and the forth is Sara's sister Amy as we were picking her up. I promised Sierra that I wouldn't erase the pictures that night but now they are forever on my blog so hopefully that will make her feel good.
At the airport in Calgary it ended up that I was waiting for the same flight as a girl that I recognized from my church here in BC. We talked while waiting for the flight as well as our luggage once in BC. She went to school for her ECE a while back but ended up working with special needs children in schools. She is now working on getting her teaching degree. It was really good to talk to her about ECE and working with special needs kids. She had some good advice for me. I'll keep everyone posted as I figure things out.
Today I went to church in the morning. I was supposed to help with Sunday School in the first service but completely forgot until halfway through the second service. Oops! It wasn't a problem though, they had enough people to help without me. While I was in church today I was thinking that it felt like I'd been gone a month or more, not just 8 days. It really was a good, refreshing trip.
I went to take care of Brig today. There were no problems with him while I was gone. At least none that I've heard of so far. I rode him today. He is such a good horse. He's only 3 and can be a bit goofy and hyper. I hadn't had time to ride him the week before leaving so he had had almost 2 weeks off. Today I took him out of the field, tacked him up and got on and he was great. I could never do that with Sugar. She wasn't a bit better by the time I sold her but you always had to be careful if she'd had some time off. Brig apparently doesn't really notice. Anyway that was my trip. I am so glad that I was able to get the time off work to go to Alberta. It was definitely worth using up all of my holidays for a while.