A Pony Club Kind of Weekend

On Friday right after school, I drove 3 horse-crazy teenage girls down to Corvallis for something called an "ABC Retreat". "ABC" stands for upper level ratings in the United States Pony Club. The retreat was strictly a classroom setting for horse management knowledge. Memo did not get to come along to play ;)

On Friday afternoon, we were given a tour of the Oregon State University School of Veterinary Medicine. They had recently completed extensive renovations and it is really a state-of-the-art facility. They have one of the few animal CT scans in the country (at a university). Our tour guide was very perky and knowledgeable. I was able to show Natalie where Memo was on our visit there last year for her colic. It had changed quite a bit.

That night we had a pizza party and mixer with the other pony clubbers and moms. It was nice to put names with faces. The rest of the night was spent hanging out in our very nice hotel room.

We were up bright and early on Saturday. Not an easy feat with teenagers in tow ;) Breakfast at 8:00 and classes starting at 9:00AM.  The classes were very in depth and not for the non-horse person (namely, me!):

• Infectious Diseases and Immunizations (taught by a vet)
  
• Saddle Fitting (taught by our regional supervisor)
  
• Turn-out for Horse and Rider (PC and Eventing) (taught by a one-star eventer and PC'er)
  
• Dressage on the Levels (Training Pyramid) (taught by a USDF bronze-medal dressage instructor)
  
• The Mental Game: Prep for Ratings & Competition (taught by a retired clinical psychologist)
  
• Soil & Pasture Management (taught by an OSU extension faculty member)
  
• When Good Nutrition Goes Bad (taught by an A-rated PC'er and researcher for a feed company)
  

Three classes in the morning, a lunch break, then four classes in the afternoon. Did I mention that there were no windows in the classroom?? Sigh. I did manage to find the codes for the free wifi for the conference center so luckily I could play on the internet (facebook!!) until my battery died on the laptop :) I'm pretty sure I was the only non-horse person there... even the other moms were really into it. I tried really hard, but just not my thing. Luckily, the girls really learned a lot!!

On Sunday morning, we were given a tour of the Oregon State Horse Barn and learned all about the  Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. After the tour, we snuck to Starbucks!! I'm such a bad influence!! The girls were a few minutes late to their classes, but didn't seem to mind :) The rest of the morning was a variety of roundtable discussions on such topics as:

• The future of Pony Club
  
• Opportunities available from USPC
  
• Your personal PC experience
  
• Beyond the Ratings: fun ideas for club activities
  

Natalie really seemed to get into this. She is always full of ideas and likes to communicate with others. One of the moms came over to me afterwards and asked how old Nat is. She said how impressed she was with Nat. That she has it all together.  Stuff like that always makes me feel good as a mom :) Hopefully I did something right all these years. As always, I am a proud momma.

All of the meals were provided so that was nice. The facilities and teachers were first-rate. A really well done retreat.

I sure did miss Jim. It was so nice to get home.

A quick birthday shout-out to my nephew, Colby! Today is his sixth birthday. Happy Birthday, Colby! May your birthday be full of fun and lots of Pokemon cards! xoxox Auntie Paris