Take A Leap With Horses

WOO HOO! Our first time heading down to the States for an EAL School and we are PUMPED!  We flew into Boston and true to Kari and Carolyn style, followed the GPS and got lost. But with one quick turn around we continued on our merry little way. What a gorgeous drive. As we got out of the city and into the country the landscape just got more beautiful. As the light of the day dimmed we finally pulled into our B&B to meet one of the highlights of our trip! We stayed at the Birchwood Inn in Temple New Hampshire! A perfect place for us with our own separate space, a gorgeous little restaurant and even a little pub all located within the eclectic place. However, the owners were the best part! Andrew Cook and Nick Finnis were not only the most charismatic people that we may have ever met in our lives, but also the most parental! There was ZERO chance of us leaving for our day without eating breakfast, and ensuring that we always had a lovely lunch and dinne...

Our second time to Huntsville seemed like it was going to be a breeze! Heck we had been there before, we were even staying at the same lovely B&B, AND we had a GPS! And it really was easy! Our host facility was once again amazing and the team of facilitators were awesome. We even had one gentleman who actually had no horse experience, but simply knew that this type of learning was on the upswing, so he wanted to hop on the wagon early! Jim was a fantastic learner, but every once in awhile, would randomly disappear! The running joke became, “Where’s Jim,” as it seemed one of us was always asking that question. He was a fantastic sport about all the girls teasing him! Another lovely bonus of our second time back is that we even got a few visitors! Monique and Melina both travelled to come pick our brains and get in some practice while we were in town! A few days in, Carolyn’s cold that she started out the trip with started to get worse. And worse… and worse. Event...

As you may have learned, the foundation upon which Equine Connection bases themselves on is ethics and integrity in the most utmost regard. From the most incredible, interactive horse-human learning experience, to the undeniably fun approach to developing skills and changing lives through horses, the certification program that they host is the most unique and most exceptional in the world! But why does their course have such good loyalty, support, and commitment from their facilitators, when they could attend a perfectly good course for less money? Here are 10 reasons why Equine Connection - Academy of Equine Assisted Learning’s Certification Course is better than “the other ones.” 1. Their facilitator’s are governed by the amazing regulatory committee of the EAL Network. Meaning that there is consistent integrity of the course and its facilitators! Their governing body recognizes one form of EAL ONLY and ensures all facilitators live up the integrity of the course...

Off to the East Coast! We hadn’t been out East since we had traveled with Strathmore Heritage Days, so we were excited to go out and eat lobster and sing the Unicorn Song once again! We got off of the plane to a sunny day and remembered one of the reasons why we loved Charlottetown, PEI… because of the airport. What a great little airport! Friendly people; we didn’t get lost; it didn’t take six hours to get to the other side - this is good stuff! So in record timing we had our rental car and were on our merry way! We had rented a little old historic house in Charlottetown and made our way to it without getting lost (we know, we were surprised too). We arrived at our little house and headed on in to explore. The little garden area was adorable and the house had that historic feeling and simply beautiful character. The only issue was that the heating was also similar to how it would have been in the 1800’s which was pretty much non-existent. As it turns out, May is still pr...

We arrived in Melbourne and headed off to meet Karsyn and Ben. We didn’t have a vehicle and a nice man at the airport told us to just hop on this bus, get off at this stop and then we could walk to our condo. Although this man was nice, he was severely mistaken! We ended up hailing a cab from the bus stop (remember we also have our luggage with us) and it was another 15 minute cab ride from where we were! We got to the condo and headed upstairs where the lovely kids were waiting for us with a fridge stocked with all the goodies that two girls who just got off a plane and walked 6 blocks to a bus to have to hail a cab after, could want. We stayed up playing games and describing our adventures over the past week. Now one thing that Carolyn desperately wanted to do was swim with the sharks. We walked up to the Aquarium and as a twist of fate, there was one spot available for the next morning! Carolyn was flying high with excitement! However, the next morning she showed ...

TOWNSVIILLE - The Face of the Sun! We landed at the Townsville airport and walked off the plane to feel the breath sucked out of our lungs as we gasped for air. The heat! The sheer HEAT! Now being from Canada we do get a little bit of hot weather, even up into the 30 degree celsius mark, but it is dry heat. Townsville is humid. Not a little humid. A lot humid. And by the time we reached our hotel we had probably said “Oh my gosh it’s hot” about 104 times during the half our drive. This was also Carolyn’s first experience with driving on the other side of the road. And the first experience of getting lost in Townsville. We are not “map people” we are more GPS people (which if you read all of these blogs you will find that that doesn’t even always work for us) but we were quite pleased with ourselves once we finally arrive on location. We were looking right out onto the ocean and the scenery was breathtaking. We however, were not. This was the day that we realized tha...

So if anyone was not aware, the flight to Australia from Calgary is 16.5 hours of flying time. For those of you who do not know us personally, the average time that Kari usually sits in one spot is approximately 24.6 seconds. So that much time in an “air coffin,” as Kari called it, was a definite push! She made it through the multiple long flights and we FINALLY landed in Sydney! The initial plan for Australia was to meet up with Kari’s daughter Karsyn and her boyfriend Ben in Melbourne after the course. After we got through security we bee-lined it for the doors to smell the sweet sweet fresh air!  Then we felt a tap on the shoulder! Karsyn and Ben had arrived in Sydney early to surprise us!  And surprise us they did! There were shrieks and giggles and hugs and mushies for about 10 minutes before we overcame the shock of the two people standing in front of us! We collected our luggage and headed out to the little camper van that the kids had been calling home. ...