74.

feeling more refreshed today...
totally took advantage of this gorgeous day. middle of march and the high is 80??? love it.
i layed in the sun for about 2 hours. trying to get a tan early this year.
i think tanning is my biggest weakness. i could seriously lay in the sun all day long. i love sun and heat and summer and tans :)
and summer weather at the end of winter is awesome. seriously, why havent we had this before? haha
this afternoon my sister and i met several of our friends at the dairy barn (local ice cream place) for some ice cream, obviously, and to talk and catch up.
then church and american idol tonight.

73.

 the cool 'lexington, ky' sticker they were giving out at RTTH. i thought it'd be perfect for my phone.

im still not caught up on sleep...ahhh!
i had classes all day. a paper due that i finished this morning. we had some friends form GA visiting this afternoon/evening.
i got a super bad headache yesterday evening that i cant get rid of and my neck is so tight i barely have any motion.
all the sitting i did this past weekend was hard on my body. (ughhh i feel like im 80 years old...no offence to those of you who are 80.)
i was in bed with a heating pad by 10. i need sleep so bad.

72.

soooo incredibly exhausted.
i had about 50 million things on my to-do list today. getting back in the swing of things after a vacation is hard.
i had about a weeks worth of studying and homework to do (which included finishing my paper), had to unpack, and then had to work from 4 to 8.
i was all i could do to hold my eyes open all day.
i had fun with the sweet kiddos i watched tonight. we blew bubbles, drew with chalk, played on the swing, ate mac n cheese, watched a movie, played with trains, and then read books til their mom got home. :)
i crashed as soon as i got home.

71.

wearing callies pretty necklace

last day :(
we got up extra early to pack, load the vehicles, and check out of our hotel.
we went to cowboy church that morning. which was really good. the preacher (carter edmondson) was great and i enjoyed the service a lot. we went and met him afterward and let him know we were glad they were holding a service at RTTH and talked a little about how we could relate to some of the things we said. it was a cool experience.
the 3 of us just kinda wondered around shopping and talking and trying to stay awake. haha
they did the final challenge today-the obstacle course. it was really interesting, exciting, and very stressful.
tootie bland (the lady who puts on the whole thing) offered each team 30 bounus points each if they would switch horses to ride for the obstacle course (keep in mind that the clinicians had only touched their own horse. it was against the rules to mess with any horse except your own.) and my aussies decided to take her up on it. so they switched horses at the last minute and had to compete using a horse they had never ridden before or even touched.
but of course they still did great!!! and they WON the whole thing. i was screaming so loud i was afraid i was gonna lose my voice. haha it was amazing. the whole trip was amazing.
we walked around the stables and then headed for the parking lot. it was a sad goodbye and heading in opposite directions for home. lai and i heading south and callie heading north. we delayed it for as long as we could. haha but we gave big hugs and hit the road.
lai and i decided we better stop and get large coffee's for the trip to keep us awake. she drove the first half and i drove the last half. we kept the music up loud and talked or sang the whole time, to keep each other wide awake. haha we made it home safely and with sooooo many amazing memories and lotsa pictures. (which you can view the ones i took here).
we also sat next to some awesome ladies from up north. they were a blast. :)

70.

we got up early again to drive down to bedford tack in shelbyville.
after a little shopping we headed back to RTTH to enjoy day2. we stopped at starbucks on the way because we were all so exhausted.
we got to meet Stacy Westfall (after stalking her all weekend) get her autograph and a picture with her, we got to meet John Lyons and get his autograph, also met Craig Cameron (pic and autograph) and Pat Perelli. We were all three so excited.
we did a little bit of shopping at all the venders booths (i got the super cool wallet pictured above) when we got tired of sitting and had fun trying to push through the crowds of people. it was ridiculous how crowded it was.
it was another awesome, successful day in the roundpens for round 2. they all got so far.
THENNNNNN....right when we were getting ready to leave we decided to walk around the place one more time. we were walking along and talking and laughing and we rounded the corner where the australian's booths were. i looked up and stopped in my tracks... GUY MCLEAN was standing right in front of us. AHHHHH....i started freaking out (callie too) and we went over and asked him to sign our RTTH shirts and then we got a picture with him. it was SOOOO cool. we talked to him for a few minutes. then i looked over and DAN JAMES was right there tooooo!!! then i started to REALLY freak out. we went over and had him sign our shirts and got a picture with him and talked to him for a minute. it was SO BEYOND COOL.
such a once-in-a-life-time-kinda-day!!!! i still can hardly believe it.
also...something else thats kinda cool:
dodge had a booth there are they were actually PAYING people to test drive their 2013 dodge rams. callie decided to go do it and while she was signing up and everything they told me that if i rode with her, they'd pay me too. i was like heck yeah...totally doing this. so she drove her first dually and i rode with her and they gave us each a $10 american express gift card. can you say free souvenirs??? haha
we went back to the room, ate supper, went to target til they chased us out at closing time, got popcorn, went back to the room to watch a movie and get some packing done.

69.

we got up early so we would have plenty of time to get ready and find tn miller coliseum which is where Road to the Horse is.
the GPS decided to get us lost (thank goodness we were super early) but in the process of getting lost we found a super cool looking place (which we later found out was the Bill Rice Ranch) that we decided to check out.
it turned out to be some kinda Christian summer kids camp and it had this cool little old-timey 'town' set up. we thought it was the perfect place for a photo shoot. we parked the truck, jumped out, and went to shooting. we had a blast and the pictures turned out super cool!
we then headed back to find the coliseum and found it and werent late at all. RTTH was beyond amazing. i was blown away by the talent of all 6 trainers. especially the australians. holy moly they were amazing. i had decided that i was going for AUS when we first got the tickets, but after seeing them work in person it totally confirmed it.
each clinician had a few minutes to kinda introduce themselves and show what they do. then it was on to picking the colt they were going to start and work with over the weekend. as soon as the herd came out i picked my favorite-- a pretty roan who had a lot of personality!!! and guess what?? dan james (one of the aussies) picked him to start. wooooot!
after they all had picked their colt, they began round 1 of the roundpen work. i was impressed with how much they each were able to accomplish with their horse in such a short period of time.
all 3 of us were super exhausted by the time we got to the room that night around 930. but we ate some supper and headed out for walmart to goof off (what else is there to do at midnight???) and we wanted to get some sharpies so we could get autographs the next day.
after heading back to the room, taking showers, and taking silly pictures on callies webcam, we all crashed into bed around 2.

68.

today is the day i've been waiting for since last November.
its the beginning of our spring break girls road trip for Road to the Horse<3333
i am so excited. Lai and i decided we wanted to just take our time and not make it stressful so we got up this morning, got everything packed and ready, loaded up and took off -- murfreesboro bound ;)
we had a few stops in town to make before we actually hit the road...
one of which was at wally world. one thing on the list was window chalk (or whatever its called). WAYYY FUN!
neither one of us are light packers....so the backseat of the truck was ridiculously FULLLLL. seriously, we shoulda been embarrassed. haha
We made it safely and were praying that it wouldnt rain while we were traveling. God answered our prayers and it didnt start raining until we were about 5 minutes out. We had to unload in the pouring rain, but it was way better than driving in it. so thankful.
We got unpacked, spread out on the beds and watched tv for a little bit. went to chick fil a for supper. went back to the room and waited for callie to get there.
she arrived around 11 so we helped her unpack and then stayed up late talking and laughing and catching up. we hadnt seen each other in over a year!!!!!