July 26, 2018

Last Friday I turned 40. I am not a big age equals numbers person but this one sort of got me. 40 is a real adult, no excuses, middle aged, full adulthood adult.  So Val took the opportunity to throw me a birthday bash games competition!  Seriously, what better way to roll into real adulthood than playing games with your friends? I sure can’t think of a better way!

Val went official and rented out the Woodstock Equestrian Park arena, set up an online entry form, ordered t-shirts for everyone, and even organized a nice long pizza lunch break party and everything.

So many friends turned out, and we even had a crap forecast for the day. It was dry while we set up, but by the time we had most of the arena set, it started to rain.  In the photo above you can see Eliza peeling the score sheets apart, and this is before we got riding and it really started to rain!

A bunch of people got held up just before they got there due to a train being stopped on the tracks.  But that was just a bump in the road (literally).  We were playing it cool for the day, and rolled with it.

These two cracked me up all. day. long.  They showed up in “Flossy Posse” shirts complete with chains on to represent the movie “Girls Trip” that they watched about 100 times on our UK trip this June.  I laughed so hard.  “Dina” and “Lisa” even made me a little key chain gift.  They were also joined by Elise and yelled at me hilariously when I rode. I am lucky I didn’t pee my pants laughing. So funny.

Val organized us into two divisions.  “Osh Kosh” rode first and “Simon” rode second.  Osh Kosh was my former Open pony and Simon is my slower Novice/Intermediate/O25 pony.

Most of us scrambled with someone new.  I rode in the Simon division, on Simon, appropriate right! haha, with Jenny on her giant Bitey.  Jenny was way fun to ride with. She’s picked so much up so fast. And Bitey is at that point in his training where he “knows” what to do, and maybe needs a little “oh no you don’t”. Mean while Simon needed to remember he can keep going when I lean over and he needs to stand while I get on. It was a good training session for both of us.

We had a break between divisions to change out ponies and ring crew.  It was a ton of fun and very laid back.  Oh and wet.

Photo: Genevieve Arens Photography

After session 1 we took a fun lunch break.  The grounds were nice enough to allow us to use the garage so we could sit down and eat in the dry.  It was really fantastic.  Carol Ann made cupcakes.  The pizza was huge!  Fred brought watermelon.  Lots of chatting.  It was a regular party!

Then we mixed it back up and combined into one heat of dedicated players and hit the field.  While we were partying it up in the garage the rain had turned the ring into a bit of a pool.  Although I will say, the footing was still pretty decent.  Not nearly as rough as many of our venues!  And games players, most of us just carry on.  And so we did.  Back into the rain we went.  We decided to skip the scoring and just played for fun.

Tommy took on the Refereeing job, and as you can see the scoring area was a little wet.

But everyone was still smiles and having a blast.

Lots of laughing, catcalling and having fun.

It felt a lot like being in the UK, but warmer!

And we figured it was good practice for the next wet MA Competition we have.

The edges of the ring got soupy but the middle wasn’t nearly as bad.  We still decided to cut sock race.  Eh, not necessary.

It was really an amazing amazing time.

And by far the best birthday I have ever had.

Thank you everyone that came out and took part.

Those that rode and those that just came out and helped!

and mostly, thanks VAL for putting it all together!

Feelin the love.

Photo: Genevieve Arens Photography.