Back in September, I decided to go visit a friend I'd met on the internet, in Quebec, Canada. Cat Dufour, of The Stall Next Door, and I had been emailing eachother constantly since we met via our webpages, so the chance to go meet her was an opportunity too good to refuse. We planned the trip to coincide with 2 important horsey events for her and her horse Abbey. The first was a dresage demonstration, and the second was Abbey's first show ever! After something like 30 hours of being awake and eating nothing but airplane food (ugghh!), I finally arrived in Ottawa. As I waited to get off the plane, the monotony and sheer boredom of the last day was forgotten and all I could think about was what was gonna happen when we finally met!!

Luckily Cat spotted me as soon as I entered the terminal, and after the a few hours of "oh my god I can't believe I'm here!!!" and "oh my god I can't believe you're here either!!", it was like I was with a friend I'd known all my life!

After catching up on some sleep, it was off to the barn to meet the famous Abbey!! Where else? The barn is a really cute place, and nothing like the agistment that we're used to in Australia. After checking everything out, I finally got to meet Abbey, and let me tell you she is every bit as gorgeous as she looks in the photos on Cat's site. And every bit as big too!!! But such a complete sweetheart!

The demonstration was on the night after I arrived, so the first part of my trip was spent practising and prettying Abbey up (not that she needed much) for her big nite. When the big nite rolled around, Abbey and Cat were super, just like I knew they'd be, and Abbey was a huge hit with the kids to!

Now I'm trying not to blah blah too much about Abbey and horses horses horses, but after all it is a horsey website!!!

Cat's dad's birthday party was held while I was there, so I got to spend a fair bit of time getting hassled about my accent, amusing myself because I don't speak french, and answering all kinds of weird questions about Australia (do we have coke? do we have mcdonalds? are there koalas in our backyards?).

Corinne, a friend of Cat's, and now a friend of mine, also had her birthday party while I was there. Her family has this gorgeous cottage up by a lake so we all headed up there and had some really good, silly fun.Corinne is quite nuts, and at around 1am her and her boyfriend decided to go swimming in the lake!!! Bear in mind that is is Autumn (fall) right now in Canada, and I'm quite sure the air temperature was below zero, let alone the water temperature!!! Like I said, nuts!!!

The day after Cat's dad's party, me, Cat and another friend Caro went to this gorgeous wildlife park called Parc Omega. It's soooo cute! You drive your car all around this park and all the animals, even the buffalo, come right up to the car and you can feed them and pat them! It was so cool and we had so much fun.

I spent a fair bit of time bumming around Cat's house the next week, as she still had to to work and university, but with more than 30 channels to play with, who could get bored???

The weekend before I left, Cat and I went to visit the Mounties stables, which was just fantastic. The indoor arena was sooooooo nice!! And there were so many horses! We also hit all of the saddleries within say a 50km radius, maybe more!! Got a nice rug and flashy halter for shows for Kai!!

The horse show was also on the weekend before I left and the weather was horrible! Check this out, I had 2 shirts, 2 jumpers, a quilted vest, and a winter jacket on and I was still cold!! Get the picture??!! Cat and Abbey were entered for 3 classes and did really well in all of them, especially for their first show. They even managed to come home with a 3rd place ribbon (which should have been a 1st, lousy judge, but that's a whole other story). All in all the show was a success, and I'm really glad I was able to be there and share it all with Cat and Abbey.

Now I just miss them like crazy!!

On my last day, Cat had to work, so Caro, a friend of hers, who is also a friend of mine now took me out for beaver tails! Sound strange? Yeh, well I was a little anxious too until I learned that a beaver tail in this context is actually a sweet pastry, and it was absolutely delicious!!!

Ok well I guess that about sums up the trip. Of course there is just no way to put into words on a website how much I treasure the friendships I made over there, and how I miss them SO much and more than anything I wish they were here with me. But if you guys happen to read this, I love you guys SO much and can't wait to see you all again-

SO HURRY UP AND GET YOUR LITTLE FRENCH-CANADIAN BUTTS DOWN HERE!!!!!!!

This is Caro, Me and Cat on my last nite in Canada, trying to look happy for the photo.

 

 

 

 

This is Me (on the bottom) and Cat at Corinne's cottage.

 

 

Me and Cat with a real, live Mountie!!

 

The flash rug I bought for Kai in Canada.

 

There are more horse-related pics from this trip in the Your Horses gallery.