World Equestrian Games

 Last weekend we drove up to North Carolina to attend the World Equestrian Games near Tryon.  We met my parents at an AirBNB Thursday night then my mom and I headed to the games Friday while Matthew and my dad played with the girls all day at the house.  Friday was the longest I've ever been away from Leonie and Elsie!  They, of course, were fine and didn't even notice my absence.  Here's Mom and I near the entrance to the show grounds.  This international event was a little chaotic but we managed to park and ride a bus to the event with no issues.

 

 

We bought tickets to watch the combined driving event at WEG, which lasted three days.  Day one was the dressage test.  All 19 drivers took their four-in-hand hitch of horses around the arena and executed specific skills.  It was very impressive to watch!

 

Due to some necessary venue changes from hurricane Florence the seating at the dressage testing was less than adequate and the event time change made some people miss the action.  As a consolation, we were allowed to use our driving tickets to watch show jumping later in the day.  That suited us very well and we were able to watch the first half of the four-person gold medal USA jumping team.  Here are the two Americans that we watched.

 

Back at the AirBNB Nanny and Pop came by for a visit while they stayed with the Makas' for the weekend.  Nanny and Elsie.

 

Leonie trying to wear mommy's shoes.

 

A rare photo of me and the girls, I'm usually taking the photos!

 

On Saturday Matthew and my dad took the girls to a library where they met Nanny, Pop, Emily, and Henry for lots of play time.  The girls had so much fun they didn't even take their second nap!

 

Meanwhile, Mom and I thoroughly enjoyed day two of combined driving.  We've never seen any of these competitions in person so it was quite a treat.  Here we are at obstacle six of the marathon stage of the competition.  Each driver takes their team through eight obstacles (basically weaving through a maze) over a several mile course.  They are timed within each obstacle and accrue points based on the time.  Lowest points wins!  These points are also added to their penalty points from day one and day three (another obstacle course of cones where they receive penalties for time and knocking over cones but we did not stay for that) and the overall lowest score is the champion.

 

 

This team is navigating part of the water course at obstacle six.

 

Another team completing obstacle five.

 

Here's obstacle four.  We ended up going backwards to watch, just the way it worked out!

 

Obstacle two.

 

Obstacle one.  This is the American that ended up a silver medalist.

 

Netherlands team on obstacle one.

 

The gold medal team on obstacle one, from Australia.

 

 

Selfie with the winning team going by in the background! What a great weekend.  We even managed to watch the remaining day of competition on TV once we got home.