Anna-Lee Leilani

Hello, Today I had  my Spanish lesson! I have been taking Spanish for about 1 month now and am really enjoying it. You may wonder "Why do you want to learn Spanish?' Well, one of the reasons is I have a friend that is  from Mexico and I have wanted to talk to her in Spanish ever since I met her three years ago. Another reason is that our church is going on a missions trip to Guatemala next year, and I feel that a way to bless people is to speak their language!! So, back to my classes. I have classes twice a week. . One neat thing about this course is it is on Skype so I am actually talking back and forth with native Spanish people who live in Guatemala. One more neat thing is that I went onto their web site and chose my own teacher! I read their bio's (What their interests are and what they went university for.) to find a good match. So far I have had Adrianna and Nora. Adrianna loved dancing and Nora loves music. I have enjoyed both of my teachers. They are fun and ...

Finally, I can tell you about horseback riding or you may want to say ponyback riding. You may have guessed that I got to ride Ellie-May who has quite the temper for a such a little horse.She does not like her mouth touched so she wags her head ferociously back and forth and snorts if you use the reins and pull the bit in her mouth. I had to use my body much more with Ellie May in order to direct her! A couple times she started scooting sideways and even backwards on me when she got mad at me pulling the reins!!!!  We did not do any jumping because Ellie loves jumping so much that she bucks after every jump, so she is not ready for beginners. We just worked on walking, trotting, and transitions (Transitions are when you are tested for how fast you can stop her or make her trot - things like that). Riding her was very different than riding a horse because ponies have no neck, so it feels like you are way closer to their head!!! It was a neat feeling, but kind of scarey too a...

Hi, Yesterday was very nice but not very relaxing! I went to Kiwanis Festival with my Wind Ensemble group. For most of them it was their 2nd time, but it was my first and I enjoyed it.  I met up with my group around 2:30, we warmed up, we did a few songs, and had fun. We were supposed to be on stage at 3:05 but, when 3:05 came they said that there was a delay and we were had to wait unitl 3:30 so, we practiced more. Then we were called up onto the stage and it took about 5 min. to get all the seating situated. We played our two songs, Petit Rien and Les Rejouesance. Then the judge came up and talked about timing intonation, and dynamics and said we were good. He asked us to play Les Rejouesance again louder this time now that we knew we were good!  Then he gave Beverly (My conductor) a certificate. and we all filed back to our room. (we did not know what we got). And then our conductor said "Well, good job everyone. We got 89% and guess what?. We got gold!!!" Well, the che...

I am really looking forward to next Tuesday because my coach wants me to ride Ellie-May, one of the new ponies which is going to be a huge change for me. YAYYYYYYYYYYYY When I got Mickey out of the paddock today he was a mess. It took me a whole 15 minute to brush his neck!  Today we started cantering and jumping!  That was a BIG surprise for me. It felt like we were flying. This was my very first time jumping!! I loved it a lot. I had a little beginning to cantering and enjoyed it quite a bit. Next week if weather permitting ( Can you believe it is -16 and snowing here) we are going to ride in the sand ring. I think it is a safe assumption that it is made out of sand!!  Looking forward to telling you all about next week.  Anna-Lee this is Ellie-May. Me grooming Mickey. Me jumping. Me finishing a jump. and going into a canter