I'm Alive, I Swear!

I'm still alive, I swear! This summer has been extremely busy for me and unfortunately my blog was one of the casualties of that. I have been on overload between riding four different horses in four different locations, horse showing, pre-grad school stuff, photography, and something resembling a social life.

BUT, as you can see, I am coming back with a vengeance. I redesigned the entire blog from top to bottom, starting with a new name. College Cowgirl was no longer appropriate as I am now a proud college grad, so the blog was in need of a new name. I figured Live to Ride (which is already my blogger user name) was an appropriate title to sum things up. Yes, I am going back to school as I pursue my Masters, but I am also beginning my journey in the "real world". Riding will always be a part of that. Even though my career may not always be horse related, horses and riding will be always what I live for.

Along with the new title, I figured the blog could use a new look. So, I gave it a total makeover, including new photos on my sidebar.

I will also be adding some new posts to update you on my summer. I figured the easiest way is to break it up into separate posts for each of the 4 horses I am consistently working with, but I will sum this one up with general updates on me.

As previously mentioned I was accepted to grad school starting in the fall (YAY!). I will be attending the same University I attended for undergrad, which will remain nameless (sorry guys :) ). I will be pursuing a Masters in Communication, which I figured would nicely compliment my Bachelor's in Journalism and aid me in a career in the field of Public Relations or something along those lines. I still want to write and photograph of course and will continue to do so on a freelance basis and / or combine it with my newly learned Communications skills.

Speaking of writing and photography, I have been a bit of a slacker in the writing department. I have only written one freelance piece all summer, though I do have a second assignment waiting for me if I could ever find a break in my crazy schedule. On the photography front I have been quite active. I received a new camera for my graduation gift so I am not shooting with a Canon EOS 60D and I LOVE it! I redid my website with some new pictures. Check it out!

Some photos taken on my new camera:

Beach Ride!

I promised about a week ago that I was going to post about my beach ride and it slipped my mind so I will make up for it now.

Anyway so about two weeks ago, I went riding on the beach with a great group of friends and it was AMAZING. We went to Island Beach State Park which is open to horse back riders during the off season October 1 to April 30. This is something I have always wanted to do and my friends and I say every year we are going to book it and it never happens.

My friend H mentioned to me after the horse show that she was going riding on the beach with some of our mutual STB friends the following week. I of course said, "What?! I can't believe you are going without me!". Her response was that she had heard someone backed out and would tell our mutual friend who set it up I was interested. Well the next day our friend called me and said the spot was mine.

H, who as you all know is the owner of the wonderful JB aka BF, was nice enough to give Satin and I a ride. My friend K joined us to play the roll of photographer and off we went. It was about 60 degrees and just perfect weather for a beach ride. The night before it has stormed like crazy (really monsooned might be a more accurate description) so the water was loud with the waves crashing. This made the horses (all beach newbies, except Satin who hadn't been to the beach in 10+ years) a little nervous about the water. I got Sat pretty close but not really in. I think if the others had been a bit braver she would have done it but she was feeding off the herd. That was okay though, we will try again next time.

Anyway, we had an absolute blast! We had 6 miles of rideable beach and a great group willing to do it all. We did lots of trotting and cantering and had some great runs down the shore line. The pictures came out awesome! K is like my photography apprentice. (I will post some of them when I get home as I am posting from my interning office right now) We rode for about 2 and half hours. Thankfully my mare is in awesome shape and used to sand from our very sandy ring. Though, I am sure she was quite tired once she settled in on the trailer. Afterwards we had a little tailgating party in the parking lot with tons of food and drinks. We couldn't have asked for a better group or a better day and are looking to do it again in October.