J. In The Driver's Seat

This has been an exciting month for Jessie.  The end of September found us at the Golden Spike Arena in Ogden for the State 4H Horse Championship. 

She was kind of disappointed with Dolli's performance in show events on the first day. Usually, show events are Dolli's bread and butter, but especially in Halter (a ground work event) she came unglued.

In the warm up arena before show events. Looking sharp!

Jessie lunging Dolli before events on day 1.

Trail

A beautiful pivot in the box

But day 2 - speed events - was a different story all together. Historically, Dolli hasn't displayed lightning speed. She's respectable, but Jessie's always just resigned herself to the fact that Dolli would never be winning any ribbons when it came to speed.

She proved us wrong at State. Jessie was blowing past personal bests all over the place. Quadrangle, Poles, and then Barrels. And at the end of the day, Jessie ended up taking 19th overall, out of about 150, in speed. (We didn't see that coming, so we left before the awards ceremony. Oops. We are still doing penance for that one with Jessie. Another demerit on our parenting record. In our defense though, we had been away from home a LONG time, and were anxious to get back to our other children.  Her friend collected her ribbon for her, and she got it at practice later. Sorry J. )

Sun rise on day 2.  Waiting to run.

Here's the video of her Barrels run. She had quite a fan club, as you will hear.

DSCN5403 from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Here, at the end of another State Championship with the man of the hour, Grandpa Sullivan.
The memories are priceless.

 (By the way, that horse on the left, another of Grandpa's project horses, took first in State...second year in a row for a Sullivan-trained horse, Megan L. riding. Not too shabby. Congrats, Meg!) 

In other Jessie-related news, the long-awaited day finally arrived when Jessie took the wheel. It was long-awaited because I didn't realize that to get a learner's permit she had have her social security card, which I lost years ago and hadn't taken the time to replace yet (more great parenting). So I spent a day at the social security office (thank goodness I squeaked that one through before the government shut down), and then we had to wait a week for it to arrive in the mail. THEN.....there was the written test to take...and then take again....and then take again. (To tell you the truth, she knew her stuff, so I think that the DMV must have intimidated her. Which I can totally understand.)  

Third time's the charm. On her last attempt she passed with a 95%...so I guess she's qualified.

She is now legal on the roads (with a parent). It's hard to believe, but we have a teenage driver in the house. 

...And suddenly, for some reason, I find myself marking the time until she leaves home (can you believe it?) ...because if the day came when she's old enough to drive a car, the day will inevitably come (sooner than later) when she leaves the nest. It's really happening.

We're trying to enjoy it all.  Love you, Jess!