Today is Nick's 21st birthday! Lizzy organized a nice dinner for the whole group in Maastricht to celebrate. Laura Teodori met us at the restaurant, and she kindly picked up a cake for Nick because the town near Henk's farm is bit lacking in the gourmet baked goods department. Lizzy is a great babysitter, but with this crew on her hands the night was still bound to be wild!
All the horses flatted lightly today. The Nation's Cup horses are starting to feel back in good form for next week. The flat work with Mr. Barnabus was very beneficial for all the horses and riders, and we have all been making our best efforts to reproduce his flat training on our own. This morning, the outdoor ring was filled with crazy American jumper riders with very long stirrups attempting to make perfect 20-meter circles, doing lots of lengthening and shortening, and desperately trying to polish saddles.
After riding, we got cleaned up and were ready to party in Maastricht. During the car ride, Karl and Nick introduced Jen to their favorite game on Karl's IPad: ICopter, a game where the player uses his or her finger to control the altitude of a helicopter and attempts to avoid obstacles. The boys are absolutely obsessed with it and constantly try to beat each other's highest scores. Although it took Jen a little while to get the hang of the game, by the time we arrived in Maastricht she was practically an expert! Taylor, on the other hand, still has yet to achieve a score higher than 577, and the current high score held by Nick is 3016. Taylor also discovered that the lowest score one can receive is a 36... and then proceeded to earn that exact score several times. She has a long way to go and unfortunately may be the least talented ICopter player of all time!
Dinner was delicious. The restaurant had a large variety of meats and veggies and an entire menu dedicated solely to asparagus. Our server brought each person a complimentary cup of asparagus soup at the beginning of the meal, and Karl liked it so much that he ordered a whole bowl. Unfortunately, we forgot Nick's cake in the car and had to save it to eat another day. We didn't let this dampen our spirits, however, and the party continued! We had a late night in Maastricht, but tomorrow everyone has lessons with Henk at 4:00pm so we have time to sleep in. So far, the weekend is looking great!
- Jen and Taylor
No comments:
Post a Comment