Digital class

Ok, so I'm taking a pretty cool Photoshop Elements scrapbooking class this month on Digitalscrapbookplace.com Very cool. I met the instructor, Emma, at the digital crop that I went to in Arlington at the Great American Scrapbook Convention last month.
Her classes are very detailed and pleasantly complex. I've taken several other digital classes and they've all been pretty basic and about the same, even the more advanced ones. So, I'm liking it!
Learning lots more stuff about things that I thought that I already knew about, and I'm only on week 2. Groovy.

This is one of my class assignments. Not my favorite, but I was basically just trying to incorporate all of the techniques that I learned in the 1st 2 weeks of class. No premade items, everything had to be pretty simple, and I had to use 3 photos. So, not too bad for having constraints. It was nice taking a digital class where it wasn't like...take this element and put it here. It was like, here are 4 different techniques to make photo mats....use them.
Luckily, I have a great photographer. (Love you, Grant!) Pictures are from the Meadow Creek Schooling event that we went to last month.

It was pretty cool. Laura Mann and I both won our divisions, which is pretty trippy, since we've done that 2 or 3 times now at this particular show! (she was in Training with Sparky, and I took Ronan in Beginner Novice). Laura's been busy with her new job this past year, so we hadn't really gotten to go to any shows together since this time last year. It was awesome to have her back.

Usually, it's wicked hot at this show, but this year it was cooler because....oh yes, just like every other show since we got Ronan....it was pouring down rain. Yuck.

Play

Been working on my PSE skills.
Here's some pics from one of last month's lessons....
(can't figure out how to get the picture to be larger in the post but if you click on it, you get the full effect.)

Photos by Grant Goodyear

He's FANTASTIC!

I just have one thing to say about my past 4 days at the Area V Adult Rider eventing Camp.....

I have the Greatest horse EVER!!!!!!!

Ronan showed me that he's really coming into his own now, and just loves jumping. He is like a transformed horse since he had his jumping epiphany on Memorial day.

The camp was taught by Rainey Andrews from VA, and she was extremely good. I just loved her, and I learned so much. I would highly recommend her to anyone of any level of riding. She was very positive, energetic, and did a lot of lecture and theory on everything that she had us do. She was so good at simplifying things and breaking things down....really cool stuff.

Oh, and Ronan, because he was so good, got put into the Novice group, and finally got to jump BIG!
After months and months of little X-rails and small verticals over and over again (Ok...well it's only been since February, but still...I was getting pretty bored.) He finally got to jump some much more interesting and challenging stuff. We did tons of combinations, gymnastic sequences over what were all at least 3' fences, and then lots of wide oxers, narows, and even a huge triple bar..( Believe me, that sucker was WIDE!) No problems what-so-ever. He jumps like it's effortless....well, with him being so huge it probably is, but anyway....

We both learned a lot, and I don't think that I've ever been so proud of one of my horses before.

GO RONAN!