For the fourth week-end in a row, we got up at 3:40 am to go to a horse show for the girls's riding team.This time, our team hosted the event which required a GREAT deal of work from Tori and Natalie.They have worked for many weeks riding about 9 different horses regularly so that the horses would be safe and fit for all the visiting teams to jump on and show without any practice on their individual mounts. In other words, the hosting team provides everything , the facility, the judge, those who "school" the horses from 6:30 to 8 am,all the paperwork,and most importantly,all the horses and tack needed for 70 middle school and high school riders to compete on.They worked full, long days on Thursday and Friday to move the horses and all the horses's gear to a rented Indoor arena. Meg helped in the last few weeks to ride horses and worked all day today to help run the show.It was bitter cold and although there was not a flake of snow on the ground when we got to the barn at 5 am, there was at least 4-5 inches when we left. All the teams traveled at least 2 hours there from either the north or south and many planned to stay in local hotels for the night.
Natalie decided that she didn't get up that early to come in second and proceeded to get two firsts in both her jumping and flat classes.Tori felt that she couldn't be spared from the work and organization required today and chose to sacrifice her own riding to keep things running smoothly. I helped out by working from 5am to 4pm serving food at a concession stand. It was a big success in that everyone appreciated our menu of hot drinks and food, we made back the money that we had spent on groceries and finished with a profit of 178 dollars which we gave to our coach to donate to the rescue squad which came and was on stand-by all day. By God's Grace, they had a very boring day at the show (it was a very safe day),although they had to leave a couple of times to deal with weather related traffic incidents. We served egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches on a croissant or grilled english muffin grilled cheese sandwiches, two large crockpots full of delicious chili, hot dogs,chicken ramen cup of soup, nacho chips and many pots of coffee and hot chocolate. I really enjoyed the interaction and tried to provide good customer service with a warm local welcome to so many visitors.
We did not bring our youngest girl ,Miss J. who usually joins us because of the excessive cold, the extra long hours and the increased distraction factor of hosting the show.She is safe at Grandmas and will stay another night because the roads are not optimal for travelling around. It has been a busy week filled with family and friends (these are actually all the same people!). Larry got his sister to the airport safely despite the snow this afternoon.Tomorrow, I must plan for a productive school week after having this past week off for Mom's Funeral and this Horse Show.
