Oops...

Hello faithful followers of this blog (all 3 of you........ haha)!  I PROMISE I'M ALIVE!!!!  Super sorry for the extreme lack of blog posts (i.e. almost a whole month's worth....eh.... please don't judge me).

My laptop bit the dust and I didn't want to use my work computer for personal stuff like blog posting, so that is the primary reason for the delay.  Fortunately, in the Easter spirit, my laptop has been resurrected somehow.  I'm no expert of technology, so I'm just gonna roll with it and hope it doesn't die again (whilst diligently backing up ALL of my files on an external hard drive this time, just in case.  And by files, I mean millions of pictures and some archaic thesis work).

Its been so long since I've posted that I'm not sure where you were last updated on my life??  We've had some more foals born at Cal Poly,

Did a super fun food packaging event for Feed My Starving Children,

Celebrated National Margarita Day,

Went on a trail ride with all of my employees,

And had this little girl get really really sick with a bacterial infection and hepatitis and she almost died.  But we were able to nurse her back to health with the wonderful students I have on foaling enterprise now!  She is doing absolutely wonderful now!

Learned that I have to have surgery on my ankle from this incident, so that is scheduled for next Monday.

And then Landon came for a visit, we went hiking in Yosemite, and he proposed :)

And that is a blog post all its own my dear friends, because it is a fabulous story.  To be continued....

love,
ap (soon to be ac!!!)

Sharing the SLO life

So..... I'm about 2 weeks behind on posting.  Again.  Dang it!  I was doing so good for a while!  Oh well.

So 2 weeks ago, I returned from my vacation and got to have a little stay-cation when some of my favorite people came to visit me!!!  Chelsea, Caroline, and Emily came to California!

They enjoyed a day in San Fran and I drove up to meet them after work last Friday night.

I was still recovering from the black plague that I was stricken with following the cruise and I didn't have much of a voice (think pre-puberty 12 year old boy).  So when we did a little late night walk to Ghirardelli Square, I just got tea instead of ice cream (and got criticized by the Phines).

Side bar:  many photos stolen from Caroline and Chelsea.

We woke up to an absolutely beautiful morning filled with sunshine and Golden Gate Bridges.

Fail....... trying to hold up the bridge.  Not raise the roof.

Then we began our drive down to SLO.  Stopped for lunch in Monterey, of course.

And then took the always-beautiful drive down highway 1.  I have made this drive about half a dozen times now, and each time it still takes my breath away.  It is such an absolutely amazingly beautiful sight that I really  can't describe it to you even through pictures.

Right before Emily left those sunglasses on top of that rock....

We even made it to San Simeon to see the elephant seals (the dark blobs in the picture below) before it was too dark.

The next day we were blessed with another beautiful day, so we rose bright and early to go on a ride.

I love our Cal Poly broodmares.... I think they are so pretty :)

Then we cleaned up and headed down to Avila Beach for some sunset-watchin' and classy wine drinkin' (red solo cup.... I lift you up.....).

Saw some random guys  jump off the pier.

For a different account (and slightly different photos) of this trip, check out here and here.  Now is a great time to give a shout-out to the brand-new Caroline and Chelsea blog, aka 2 Phines.  They post some pretty good stuff (and tell you how to make yummy edibles).

I am so, so, so incredibly lucky to have these girls in my life (you too Hales!  You were greatly missed.).  They have been by my side since elementary school.  Well, OK, maybe they weren't totally on my side all the time in elementary school, but in middle school we got our mess together.

The last time I saw them was in August for only a short 2 hours at a dinner while I was in town, before they left town (to come out west, ironically).  It is amazingly wonderful that after so much time apart, we still have the same kind of friendship.  We've changed, and life has changed, but the way we work together hasn't changed at all.  And I love that. I haven't lived within 1,000 miles of them in almost 5 years, and we still laugh at the same stupid things, feel perfectly at home with one another, and at the end of the day we are still perfectly content to call it a night at 8:30 pm and watch Friends re-runs on TV.  I know that they still have my back and still love me the same way that they did when we were in 11th grade, even if we do live 3,000 some miles apart.  And that, my friends, is freakin' awesome.

love,

ap

Food for thought (I should probably stop calling it this, since I'm not giving y'all much food for thought anymore.... I think I'll change the name of this section to "Mostly stupid YouTube videos that are good for a laugh with an occasional deep-meaning video most likely related to agriculture")

Music is powerful

God bless the 90's...and jellies.... 

Simulated labor....for men.  HA.

My semi-traditional Thanksgiving

Oh Turkey Day.... one of my favorites!  Ah, who are we kidding...everything is pretty much my favorite.

Anyway, this year's Thanksgiving was probably my second favorite one ever.  My favorite was a beautiful one spent at the beach with my family a few years ago at the below table dining on turkey and oysters (and it was the last time I was actually home for Thanksgiving).

As much as I missed my family and my NC and MI friends this year, I had a blast with Landon and all of my CA friends.  Here is where the "semi-traditional" part comes in.  I hosted 22 people at my house this year.  3 of us were born in the United States.  That's right.  Three.  Including Landon and myself.  Here was this year's Thanksgiving by the numbers:

1 - 24 lb turkey (which I cooked myself for the first time ever!  Can I get a woot-woot?)
22 - friends present
 6 - countries represented (Colombia, Germany, Ecuador, Paraguay, Spain, United States) (and a lot of Spanish spoken!)
7 - first-timers to this holiday
And too much wine to count the bottles!

As per the nature of this holiday, there was SO MUCH FOOD!  But again, it was a semi-traditional Thanksgiving.  Meaning that I provided the staples of this country (turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, creamed collard greens, biscuits, gravy, pecan pie, and pumpkin pie) and my Colombian/German/Ecuadorian/Paraguay....ians?/Spaniards provided a whole mess of delicious food from their countries that I can't even pronounce/remember.  And ceviche.  Which I love.  It. Was. Awesome.

I am so thankful for these wonderful people in my life, and so thankful that we could be together on such a wonderful holiday!  They were a great "fake family" for the day :)  And I am so, SO thankful that I could be with Landon since I won't get to see him over Christmas.

Home fry's turkey day even got to start off with a little surfing.  How bout them apples for non-traditional, eh?

Now, I'm no food-blogger (which means I don't take good food pictures, as CLEARLY evidenced by the below photos), but that is a fine-lookin' bird, if I do say so myself!

Sylvana and Luci breaking the wishbone on their first Thanksgiving!  They didn't really understand this concept.... ha.

Also, since I have no counter space, all tables were pretty much occupied and we ate on the floor.... Japanese style!  Don't tell Martha Stewart or Southern Living.

TTFN!

AP

Food for thought:
A train is the dumbest way to die
Thank a farmer for your food
Zombies in real life...er...nature

Never A Dull Moment

Fall is in full swing out here in Cali!  And by full swing, I mean zero change in weather, temperature, or foliage color.  Sigh.

That is one thing that I really do miss about living in the mid west (bet you never thought you'd hear me say THAT, eh?) - the fall.  I miss the crisp air, hoodies, the bright leaves, cider and doughnuts, and football (Cal Poly isn't exactly a huge football school...I think I saw 3 people in the stadium one time, but they may have been watching a soccer game.).  Instead I guess I'll settle for palm trees and our warm season and enjoy the 80 degree temps by soaking up some sun on the beach.  I even celebrated by buying a new bathing suit yesterday.  Happy fall to me!

Luckily, the fall is keeping me plenty busy here so that I can't dwell on my "I-tried-to-have-a-pumpkin-spiced-latte-but-it-felt-really-weird-because-it-is-so-warm-outside-and-now-I'm-slightly-depressed" feelings.

Let's start with tarantulas.  Yes.  Tarantulas.  Translation:  big ass spiders.  EVERYWHERE.  Including in my kitchen.  Not cool.  The dogs were pretty excited about him though.  This is after I set him free outside.  Or maybe its a girl?  I don't know.  I was more interested in getting it out of my house than sexing it.

I let my stylist convince me to dye my hair.  This is a HUGE step for me.  I was a hair dye virgin.  Terrified of doing anything to my locks (which is silly because I rarely shower and wear a hat 98% of the time).  One of those completely unfounded and irrational fears that I have, not unlike riding the ferris wheel.  As Landon said when I asked him what he thought "Its dark."  What a guy response.

One of our best broodmares somehow punched a 5 inch deep hole in her head and paralyzed half her face..... weird (she is doing great now and the paralysis has partially subsided, which is awesome!)

Cal Poly hosted the first horse show of the year, and the Cal Poly Equestrian Team (I coach them) tied with UC Davis for high team for the day.  I really do love this giant group of goobers :)

We had a huge 110 year anniversary celebration (complete with giant party and flowing wine....) and the annual Cal Poly Bull Auction.  This event is pretty cool and brings in some of the best auctioneers in the world.  And the best part is that Laura came into town and stayed with me for a few days :)  Aaaand we totally forgot to take any pics together.  Fail.

'
The day before the aforementioned event, I was asked to take a few shareholders on a trail ride.  The day started off beautifully, with a great ride looking out over SLO.

I took along my faithful ranch dog, Gunner, who is now 8 months old.  Here's the down side to this situation:  Gunner has yet to get kicked by any kind of animal.  The sheep are afraid of him.  The steers are too gentle to mess with him.  The horses ignore him.  So he has no respect for the large feet of any livestock.....

So he got stepped on by one of the horses during the ride and had one of his front toes ripped pretty much off.  I knew it was coming at some point in time, but I would really, really have preferred that it did NOT happen when I was riding a green broke 3 year old horse at the absolute furthest point away from the ranch with a group of shareholders that I was supposed to be babysitting.  So I just scooped the bleeding pup into the saddle, said a prayer that my horse wouldn't kill me and that the dog would be chill, tied my reins in a knot and looped them around the saddle horn so I could hold the 45lb dumb-***, and headed home.

The dog was total dead weight in my arms, and so limp that I was worried he was going into shock.  No, no.  He was just SO HAPPY to be carried and held that he was in a blissful coma (please note his look of anxiety and tension in the above photo for proof).  What a goob.  Everything went off great and his toe is almost all healed.  Just another adventure for the record books.

Later that week it rained for the first time in 7 months.   Meaning that Gunner saw rain for the first time ever in his life.  And he kind of freaked out.  I took a video.... you can hear him growling at it and barking at it.  But I can't get the video off my phone..... new fangled smart phone devices that I don't know how to work.  So you'll just have to take my word for it.

I got to travel down to Pomona with our Thoroughbred Enterprise students to the October Barrett's Yearling Sale where we sold two of our colts.  We raise Thoroughbred horses at Cal Poly and then sell them as yearlings as racing prospects.  Its pretty cool that the students get to be so involved in this industry.

And this morning there was a beautiful SUNRISE RAINBOW!!!!  What??? Who starts their day off like that??  It.  Was.  Awesome.  God is so good :)

Love,
ap

26 Random Acts of Kindness

Or 26 "RAKs," if you will (Hales, eat your heart out.).  My 26th birthday was 2 weeks ago (per usual, I am about 2 weeks delayed on blog posts), and seriously, this may have been the best birthday of my life.  Or at least a very close second to the giant, wonderful, surprise pig-pickin' that my parents threw me for my 16th birthday.

A few weeks ago, I came across a very cool blog post that can be found here.  The gist is that Robyn decided that she wanted to spend her birthday completing one random act of kindness for every year of her life thus far.  She got such an overwhelming response on her blog that she launched an entire campaign called "The Birthday Project."  Basically, The Birthday Project wants to change the way people think about their birthday (or other life milestone), and use it as a super cool way to love people.  Needless to say, it is a STELLAR idea!  So I decided to do this for my 26th birthday.

Normally, my birthday falls on Labor Day weekend (and this year it was on a Sunday to boot), so it was impossible to do all 26 things on my list just on my birthday as many businesses were closed.  So I got to spread a little of it out across Friday - Tuesday, thus transforming it into a wonderful birthday weekend adventure!  I got many of my ideas from The Birthday Project, but tried to add some unique ones of my own based on my own community.  My good friend Hannah joined me on Sunday to help me out.  Here is the list of what we did:

1.  Bought Gunner a new collar from Farm Supply.

2.  While at Farm Supply, bought a $25 gift card.  When the cashier asked who it was for, I told her that I wanted her to keep it and give it to a customer who she thought would appreciate it.  She was totally caught off guard and was super overwhelmed by the gesture.  It was a super cool moment.

3.  Made pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies for my employees (their all-time favorite and most frequent request from me).

4.  Left horse treats in the tack rooms for the Cal Poly Equestrian Team and Cal Poly Dressage Team (this is actually a big deal, because I never give treats to my horses, and frequently chastise the team members for pampering their ponies).

5.  There are a lot of hikers and bikers that come by my house on the weekends, so I bought some bottled water and left it out for them to take.  Some of them even left thank you notes on my sign!

6.  Took banana bread and cookies and a thank-you card to the staff at the Sierra Vista Emergency Room in appreciation of taking care of the many students (and myself with a certain ankle injury) that I send there from the equine center every quarter.

7.  Delivered a load of clothes to the local Goodwill.

8.  Left encouraging notes on cars downtown (this one says "Happy Sunday!).

9.  Fed parking meters downtown.  This one was my personal favorite of the day.  As I was filling some meters that had expired, two surfer dudes pulled up into an empty spot.  I asked them if I could take care of their meter for them.  They were obviously a little sketched out, but the driver answered "Sure.......?".  Their skepticism of the situation continued as I figured out how much time they wanted, etc.  Finally, the driver looks around him and says "So.... are we like in a Progressive commercial or something??".  I literally laughed out loud.  Once I explained what I was doing, he got super stoked about the idea.

10.   Made "Super" homeless bags and gave them out to to the homeless downtown.  I always have these in my car (just a paper grocery bag with some non-perishable food items, an encouraging letter, some socks, toothpaste, etc.), but I made these ones "Super" by adding wet wipes, extra socks, lots of soap, etc.  There was one young couple in particular that was very grateful to receive this and I got to have some cool conversation with them :)

11.  Bought several Sunday papers out of a curbside machine and left them on top with a note to "Enjoy a random act of kindness on me!" in front of a popular cafe.

12.  Bought several $5 gift cards from Barnes and Noble and left them (along with notes) hidden in some of my favorite books in the store for customers to find.

13.  Delivered a thank-you note, banana bread, and cookies to the fire station (this actually took a few tries; they kept having to leave to fight fires/help the public, so we kept missing them!).

14.  Delivered a thank-you note, banana bread, and cookies to the Cal Poly Campus Police (this one was probably the BIGGEST act of kindness, as they have given me quite a few tickets for parking and talking on my cell phone while I have been here).

15.  Gave blood.

16.  Purchased a bunch of school supplies and donated them to a local school for children in need.

17.  Took coloring books, crayons, and games to the waiting room at the local hospital to occupy children.

18.  Sent a hand-written thank-you note (the old fashioned way!) to someone who has made a real difference in my life.

19.  Donated supplies to the local pet shelter.

20.  Taped quarters to the vending machines in the hospital cafeteria.

21.  Took Sydney, my little beagle, to visit residents at the local retirement home (we got to hear a LOT of stories from sweet old men about how they used to go hunting with their beagles when they were boys;  it was so sweet!).

22.  Left a 100% tip for our server at lunch (she deserved it!).

23.  Left surfboard wax with little notes on the cars of the local surfers at one of my fave surf spots in Pismo.

24.  Thank-you notes for the ladies who are secretaries in the Animal Science office.

25.  Left a case of diapers and an encouraging note about being a wonderful mom on the changing table in the Target bathroom.

26.  Bought coffee for the person in line behind me at Peet's.  They were super overwhelmed by a random act of kindness, and were incredibly grateful.

Bottom line:  this was amazing.  Its crazy to think how one little RAK can change someone's whole day!  I would encourage you to use your birthday as an opportunity to show your community a little more love :)

TTFN!
ap