Long overdue update

So – finally – summer is here.
And we have a green yard. Whoopie! Finally grass. No more weeds. No more dirt. No more rocks. Just green grass.
The whole house looks so much better now. We also planted some shrubs on the right side. Looks pretty good. First time we planted something. A few weeks later, it is still alive so I call that a success.




Tomorrow we are leaving on a two week – well deserved – vacation! We are going to Nova Scotia. Friends of ours are going to get married and Sarah is one of the bridesmaids! Its gonna be super exciting. I am really looking forward to it and hopefully I can come back with some great photo's!

Otherwise, everything is still ok. We are both busy at work and Sarah puts a lot of energy and time in Elmo. I guess they want to win another competition or two... More on that later. ;)
And we had a HUGE aurora outbreak on August 5. Here are some images from that spectacular night.


Aurora Borealis 5 August 2011 - Images by Olivier Du Tre

Aurora Activity

Friday I went out shooting the aurora's.
It was the best display I've seen so far. Very amazing and active with a lot of purple spikes.
Knowing that this was just a minor hick up of the magnetic field I can only imagine what it is going to be like when solar max arrives.
I'm not going to bore you with further technical details I just want to share the slideshow with you.


Aurora Borealis - Images by Olivier Du Tre

Elmo, my 2nd level champ!

Last week we had another dressage show and as always Elmo did fantastic again! I was not sure if we were able to go to the show. It had snowed 15-20cm overnight (no spring here yet...) so the roads were in poor condition. Luckily my trainer Monty has connections everywhere and we got a thumbs up that the roads were bare and good to drive.
A lot of people didn't show up so the riding times were a bit rescheduled... I had only 5 minutes to warm up and I had to start my first test immediately. Our concentration was kind of lost in the first test but we had fun. 2nd test was better. We were 2nd in our first test and first in our 2nd test. And overall champion 2nd level! That means we had the best score in 2nd level of both shows.
So proud of my champion!

Our first dressage show

Last weekend Elmo and I had our first dressage show and what a success!!!! We were first in 2nd level test 2 and second in 2nd level test 3. I am so proud of my boy!! He did a really good job!
Next show is within 3 weeks. We are already training to improve our weak points. We will keep you updated about the results!









And you can see a video of our tests here