Yeah, O.K so I lied

This post is strickly to for my sister who has lodged a complaint against the fact that I'm chosing not to blog everyday. There Amy are you happy? Now piss off!!!

I know I promised to post some pictures tonight, but it's after 11pm and we just got in from some watching some bull riding and mutton busting in Fort Collins. We have class tomorrow to make up for the holiday Monday so I will do my best to post some pictures of our day up at the Cattle Company as soon as I get home.

Tomorrow will be exactly 3 weeks until we graduate.....the weeks are flying by....crazy.

Until tomorrow, I'll just keep movin' on
Jess

Clownin' around Denver

Hey ya'll. I survived the Memorial Day long weekend but barely. Tracy flew in Friday night and we met up with Kris, (for those that don't know he's my cousin that lives in Denver...and he's a kick ass D.J). Packed in four awesome days which included various nightclubs, seeing the sites of Denver, going to the Drive-In (the new Indiana Jones movie sucks btw) and doing a two hour ride up in the mountains....it was fantastic. My only complaint is that it went by way too quick.

Now it's back to the grind. This is the start of week five so the downward slide has begun. Hard to believe that we are more than half way through.

I've decided to only post something every couple of days. Should something exciting or new arise I'll be sure to inform my faithful followers. The homework is mounting so I need to dedicate more of my night to that.

Here are some pics from the weekend.

Keep it real eh

Jessica

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore

Whoa...that was close. Today was an interesting day. The weather started out very dreary and cloudy. We were in the classroom for the entire day with Business class (an excellent class that I'm trying to soak as much information out of). What we didn't know was the while we were watching the rain, thunder and hail fall, a tornado touched down about 30 minutes away from us......I'm gonna pause just for a second........are you friggin' kidding me?? It was a little intense to say the least.

Here are the pictures from yesterday that I promised. Again, those with weak stomach's should not scroll down (Amy)....I'm just kidding, they're not that bad!

They'll be no more blogging for me this week. Tracy flies in tomorrow for the long weekend and we'll be meeting up with Kris to have some fun in Denver. Can't wait.

Have a good weekend and I'll see you on the flip side.

Jessica

Whoa

Hey fellow bloggies, sorry I didn't post anything yesterday. I'm sure Mom and Tom were anxiously sitting by the computer with their coffee hoping for an update - sorry guys. I've been extremely tired lately and I've been trying to catch up on my sleep...it's not working.

We were with a local farrier all day today for our Hoof Care class. All I can say is "wow" there's lots to know about what supports a 1200 pound horse. We observed some severed limbs of our equine friends that have passed on, many with problems in their feet. The farrier constructed a homemade shoe from a bar of steel and demonstrated how to fit it to a hoof. Next we dissected two different limbs so we could get a better look at the tendons, ligaments and bones. It was very cool.

Heidi got some great shots that I will upload tomorrow. Viewer discretion is advised.

Jessica

Sorry Papa...no picture

Week four started off with a bang, not that I'm surprised. Today we had our first Hoof care class, those hooves are complex little suckers, it was very interesting. Cat was so happy I made it back into the country that she bought me a present, a book titled "Hold Your Horses", it is hiliarous - thanks again Cat!

Anatomy consisted of tour at a local university lab. There were various skeletons and dissected displays to study such as a horse, cow, dog, even a rhino. It was great to study an actual skeleton and connect the dots. I'm slowly starting to get the hang of this Anatomy stuff.

We stopped off at the Olive Garden for dinner, I had never been and I wasn't disappointed at all. Liw, Laura and I then proceeded to Tai Chi. After being tired all day I'm suddenly rejuvenated.

Sorry this is a short one, I have to go study for a quiz and I desperately need to get to bed early.

Happy Birthday Ma, Tom and Aunt Jennifer (Aloha), hope your day was great.

Cheers,
Jessica

Ah Hoy Hoy

....and the rockets red glare....the bombs bursting in air. As you can probably guess I made it back to the States with out any problems whatsoever, what a relief.

Adam (aka Dick) and Rachel's wedding was a smashing good time. Made me realize what an exceptional family I have - truly blessed is all I can say. Special shout out to Ma who packed me a care package for the plane. Yum.

Apologies to the Manner's, sorry I couldn't do breakfast, not enough time to fit everything in.

It was great to get back and see the roomies, both Heidi and Kimi said it was "really quiet" without Liw and I here......I find that hard to believe. Check out Heidi's blog for some damn good looking Wanted posters.

I'm wanting this week to fly by as the best friend is coming for a visit, I can hardly wait. We're going to be staying with Kris in Denver for a couple of days, and I'm hoping he's got a D.J gig planned so we can drop it like it's hot.

Dead tired from drinking, dancing and driving....all in no particular order. Going to go crash, safe travels to everyone going home tomorrow.

Jess

P.S Rupert is dead to me

Tim Hortons, Hockey and Beer...yep I'm back in Canada

It's good to be back in the North, getting to the airport was no problem at all. Finding parking - big problem!!! Twice I followed signs to "additional parking" which promptly lead back on the Interstate, were they trying to tell me something? I finally found a spot that looked like a parking spot, but I don't think it really is. Here's hoping the Tiburon is still there on Sunday. The airport was utter chaos, tons of line-ups, only four people running Security and nothing was marked very clearly. You have to take a train just to get to your gate......not the best set up. It's a good thing I gave myself lots of time or I would have missed my flight. Once in Toronto I found the nearest Tim Hortons and grabbed myself a coffee. I had a two hour lay over so I found a little bar near my gate, ordered the biggest beer I could find and watched the last period of the hockey game, you can't get more Canadian than that I think. The flight to North Bay was great, we landed early and my ride was there to meet me at the door.

Spending today with fam, it's a beautiful day here. Happy May 2-4!
Jessica

View from the top

Life at 10,000 above sea level is good. Today we treked up the mountain to work on some different dude ranch horses. The steep, windy drive took about 30 minutes and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. There was snow on the ground and a storm had moved by the afternoon so it was a short day, but another awesome day with the horses. Here are some pictures Heidi snapped. They speak louder than words.










That's it for me this week, may the blog be with you....always

Tuesday is the new Friday

Hey all,

Just got in from having dinner at a great restaurant called the Rock Bottom Brewery. Liw and I will both be gone this weekend so we were not going to have a chance to take in our traditional Friday night "end of the week" celebration.....so we did it tonight. It is officially our new favourite restaurant, Tuesdays is "pint" night and you get a free beer glass with a purchase of a beer....no problem. I'd like to add that they had the hockey game on....actually brought tears to my eyes.

This morning we travelled to Fort Collins to work on some Polo horses at the University. They are quite a bit different from the horses we usually work on and it was challenging to keep their attention. This afternoon we had another Quieting and Handling class. I'm absolutely loving this class. We have gone back to the basics of leading, handling and round pen work. Some of the techniques are different from what I've learned in the past, but I'm so glad to have a starting point to go from.

I've promised myself that I will actually do some homework tonight, so sorry, no pictures.

Here's a quote from one of Liw's T-Shirts that struck a chord with me.....and something that has always been a bit of my philosophy

"I do not intend to tiptoe through life only to arrive safely at death"

Week Three...Roar

I am the worst roommate ever. I completely forgot to inform my faithful blog followers of my awesome massage that Heidi gave me on Saturday. I was scheduled to have one Friday night, but my date with the mechanical bull couldn't be postponed. Anyways it was fabulous and I was happy to help Heidi keep in practice.

Today was the start of week three. We started off out at the dude ranch. Today we each got to work on a horse one on one, previously we were paired off. I first had "Sunset", he's a nice boy but has some girth issues. I took my time and I'd like to consider us friends but only time will tell. I then worked on Rosie, she's a bit of a biter so I was faced with the challenge of concentrating on what I was doing whilst not getting bit. I'll let you know when we become friends. There is a new addition to the ranch where we practice. One of the mares gave birth early this morning to gorgeous little foal.....word in the herd is that they are going to call her Jessica cause she's so damn cute!

After lunch we had Anatomy, halfway through the class we went back to the dude ranch and reviewed the skeleton and muscles we have learned so far. It was great to work side by side with an actual horse and see everything we've been studying come together.

Liw, Laura and I are heading to Fort Collins for Tai Chi, then maybe we'll stop for a Chai Tea....who knows.

That's all for now. Hugs to all.

XO
Jess

Parks, ponies and potlucks

It's Sunday afternoon and I should be studying, but the power of the blog has taken over again. I was sitting out on our deck overlooking my Anatomy notes and trying to give some much needed colour to my snow white legs when I heard the soft whisper of the blog.......Jessica.......Jessica.......so here we are.

The roomies and I, aka "the Mares" of our herd of classmates have had a pretty full weekend. Liw, Kimi and I were up early Saturday morning and walked to Lake Loveland which is approximately 1.5 kms away from our apartment. Liw's parent were coming into town so Kimi, Heidi and I joined Cat and Chelsea on a trek up to Estes Park which is about 30 to 40 minutes away. (For those of you on Facebook, I've uploaded all the pictures.) It's a quaint little tourist town with lots of shops and restaurants. The drive up was absolutely beautiful. To reach the park you must drive through Thompson Canyon. A very narrow passage way that follows the Big Thompson River. Do a Google search on the Thompson Canyon flood. Thirty years later there is still debris in outling areas....I know because we rode past some old piping today. It started to snow pretty hard. Luckily enough the sun peeked through after all. We came home and did some studying and Liw popped over with her folks who drove in from Nebraska, it was great to meet them and nice for Liw to spend Mother's day with her Ma.

Today, in honour of mother's day (Happy Mother's Day Ma) the Mares and I went for breakfast at Perkins, Liw and Kimi introduced Heidi and I to Chicken Fried Steak aka Country Fried Steak....now follow me here, it's called Chicken Fried Steak, yet it contains no chicken. Regardless it was to die for. It's considered a traditional Southern dish served with gravy and biscuits, all I can say is yum. At noon we met 6 of our class mates at a local ranch to go for a trail ride. Pictures speak louder than words so I'll just quit right here.

Here's a pic of yours truly on "Big Daddy" and Heidi on "Baroness"

The "youngin's" aka the "Onion's" are hosting this week's potluck so we'll be heading over there in about an hour. Having a ball in the Rockies, will be seeing some of you next week for Rachel's wedding...whoo hooo!

XO
Jessica

P.S I've been here two weeks and already have a new nickname. To learn this nickname please send $1.00 in a self addressed stamped envelope, or look at the picture below for a clue.

Margarita's & Mechanical Bulls don't mix!

Friday night "Happy Hour" Margarita's.....$3.49

Sundance Saloon Mechanical Bull Riding.....$5.00

Getting your ass kicked in front the entire bar...

...Priceless

Fabulous!

Today was a fabulous day....I don't mean to imply that our class room days are not fabulous, the two are completely unrelated....I swear. Today we spent the entire day in Fort Collins at a local dressage farm. Sara did a couple of massage demo's on some beautiful horses. It was great to watch her work and see her technique, also the difference that massage makes on a horse. Look at this beautiful girl - Sudi.In the afternoon we had a rhythm class. Wendy Woo, an extrordinary local artist, helped us find our groove. We studied the gaits of the horse and how it relates to rhythm...I think every class taught in the world should be as fun as this one was. It was fabulous...have I said that yet? I just checked our "homework/massage schedule" wall and it looks like I'm sitting O.K in the homework department, and I'm not scheduled for a massage until tomorrow so I'm going to head on down to the common room and meet some class mates and watch Grey's Anatomy. It's hard to believe I'm only watching one hour of T.V a week (I think that's a good thing). This week has flown by, I can't believe it's Thursday already......yikes.

Here's a shot of Joe and I. I think I'm going to have to break down and buy a funky cowboy hat. This means I'll have a slightly used Tilley Hat for sale. Be sure to come back to blog for a 50% off coupon.

That's it for now. Still waiting for care packages and tuition donations......very disappointing people.

Jessica

Homework vs The Blog (let the battle begin)

Another full day here in the Rockies. It is my mission to get to bed early so the blog has taken precendt over my Anatomy homework....this is not good. Today we continued to work on horses individually concentrating on the shoulder and rib area. Heidi snapped some excellent shots of us. The first pic is half of the class going to grab a couple of horses for us to work on. Check out that scenary!

Here I am working on a little guy named Willy or as I liked to call him "Sir William".

This afternoon we had Quieting and Handling which focuses on getting a horses attention, leading, having them understand you through feel and body language. I tried to upload a video clip, but it was taking forever, my hope for an early night is gone. I won't post anything tomorrow as we are in the classroom all day with Business and Anatomy. May the blog be with you.

Jessica

P.S A special thank you "shout out" to Joe for the beautiful dream catchers. Liw and I have ours hanging in our windows....now if only I could get to bed and dream.

And we're off. Week Two begins

Sorry, this will be a short one. It's almost 11pm and I'm exhausted. Week two started off with a bang this morning - Anatomy (you were right about those muscle groups Aunt Sharon!). Lots of review will be needed but I'm in desperate need of pencil crayons. This afternoon I was able to work one on one with several horses, we worked on massaging the front shoulder. It's amazing what a little bit of touch can do to help them adjust. The roomies and I, along with Laura another class mate, drove to Fort Collins this evening to participate in Michael's Tai Chi class. He holds a class every Monday night from 7 to 8 so we hope to keep it up. I stopped and picked up some Moosehead for the roomies, I figured Heidi needs to experience a truly Canadian beer and it's one of Liw's favourites so it was a no brainer.


Heidi and Liw are wanting to keep up their practice with regard to giving human massages. Kimi and I figured it was only right to volunteer to have them give us massages......it's just one of the little sacrifices I'm willing to put up with. We even made a "massage calendar" and posted it on our wall.

Pot Luck Sunday...a tradition begins

Another gorgeous sunny day here in Loveland. I was a good girl and got up and went to church, that should make Ma happy. It's called St John the Evangelist and it's just down the road from our apartments. I sat in the parking lot for a minute and wondered why the parking lot was so dead. After I drove around the corner I realized I was at a neighbouring Lutheran church. Hey I was just looking for a building with a big cross and that was the first one I came across. The girls and I had a diagram of the bone structure of horse blown up to help us study. We post questions and have little discussions, we couldn't come up for a name for the horse so he will be affectionally known as "The Horse With No Name"....they should write a song about that!

The majority of the class came over for the pot luck, there were a few missing as they were attending a tattoo expo in Denver. The food was great we had everything from lasagna, salmon ball, soup, salsa, a tuna rice dish and of course the Snickers cake, of which there is a piece left and I will lay claim to it later. We had to show off the new boots, least this time Liw had shorts on!

Jess

Killer Boots Man

I woke up this morning and looked at the clock.....5:45am. Several profanities which can not be typed here were mumbled under my breath. I can not for the life of me sleep in....not even a little bit. It must be this great mountain air......that or Liw's snoring.

Today the girls and I drove to Denver with one goal in mind and that was to buy some boots. Now that I finally have the vision of Liw in her boots and boxers out of mind and the dry heaving is down to a minimal, I figured it was time to find some "killer boots man" (if anyone other than Tracy gets this line let me know) Everyone down here raves about Ariat's. We found the nearest Sheplers (the biggest western wear store) where they had a deal on buy one pair of boots get the other half off. Yes! Long story short I bought a pair of Ariat's and they are awe-some!

Just getting ready to go and review my anatomy notes, the girls and I are hosting a potluck with everyone in the class tomorrow so I just finished making a Snicker's ice cream cake. I pray it survives the night.

Jess

P.S Here's a little video to show how bored it can get without T.V. It's fun having a Belgium roommate!

One week down...only seven more to go

Good day mates,

Just came back from dinner at the Outback Steakhouse..yum. The girls and I decided to celebrate the end of our first week of school. The Corona's were flowing like wine. I'm afraid I won't be asked back to this particular restaurant due to an unfortunate table incident....I swear it was broken when I got there.

Today was extremely cold and windy so while we were supposed to have an outdoor class at one of the barns this afternoon, we ended up having back to back business classes. They will definitely help us when it comes time to "pound the pavement". I have no big plans for the weekend, it all depends on the weather. I love all the comments so keep them coming.

Stay tuned for week two!

Much love

Jessica :)

P.S my address in Loveland is 1229 North Wilson Ave, Apt D302 Loveland, CO 80537....care packages and tuition donations should be sent here to my attention. That is all.

Day Four - Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Today was an all classroom day, so sorry no pics. Judging from yesterday's comments that's probably a good thing. While yesterday was a simply glorious hot and sunny day, today was cold, cloudy and it snowed, that's right snow! I'm currently sitting in a clubhouse that's available to all the tenants in the apartments. There is a T.V and Grey's is on, so I'm getting my fix. There's a pool, whirlpool, exercise room and an excellent high speed connection so life is good. That's it for now. I need to go and review my anatomy notes as it is proving to be the toughest class for me yet, but the teacher is awesome so I have no worries.

Cheers
Jessica
XO

Update, here is a picture of the snow.....I feel like I'm back in Canada!