Sheboygan County 4-H Horse & Pony Project June Horse Show | Plymouth Lifestyle Portrait & Wedding Photographer

this past weekend was SUPER busy.

but fabulous.

minus the rain.

I was able to take photos for the third year in a row at the annual Sheboygan County 4-H Horse & Pony's June Horse Show.

Saturday is the english day and Sunday is the western day.

unfortunately Sunday the weather decided to down pour in the morning while I was there...so I wasn't able to take as many photos as I would have liked to. 

but Saturday I got plenty of jumping photos! 

take a look at some of my favorities!!

congratulations to all of the winners in the classes!!
to view more of the photos from the horse show, please click here!

xoxo

Maggie 

email me! :) / visit my website! :)

County Mounties Horse Show | Day 1| Plymouth, WI photographer

Goooooooood afternoon :) A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of shooting a 2-day horse show. It was a ton of fun...even if I did get a little too sunburnt. Apparently you are supposed to apply sunscreen more than once during the day. oopssss :) I guess better luck next time! haha.Anyway, the horse show was great and so was the weather considering that it has been kinda rainy and really hot and muggy around here this summer. Day 1 of the show was the all Hunt day.

So there was dressage,

jumping,

and flat work.

Now, for all of you that aren't familiar with horses and what goes on at a horse show, I am going to give you a little lesson :) Most people consider dressage to be like dancing with your horse. In the upper levels (at the olympics and other 4* events) riders and their horses have really complicated patterns that they ride to. A lot of these patterns have special moves where it looks like the horse is trotting really slow with its legs held high, or really extending it's legs out and even pivoting on its hind leg at the canter. I think its really pretty to watch. But that is probably because I have ridden dressage tests and know how hard it is to get your horse to do that. It takes lots of patience and time.

Here are a few more pics from Day 1:

Next will be Day 2! Stay Tuned :D

xoxo Maggie :)

email me! :) / visit my website! :)

Ketchup

So, it has been a minute since I have blogged. A lot has been going on! Some good and some not so good. If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that a couple weeks ago a very close friend of mine passed away after a long battle with cancer. Sad. Although it broke my heart to know she won't be here physically anymore, I am also very happy that she is no longer in any pain. Since I met her at my job in the mail room  at college, Mike and I literally took a one day tour of Wisconsin. (yes...I worked in the mail room while going to college, for the record...next to photography, working in the mail room was by far the best job I have EVER had for a few reasons...1) the people I worked with were awesome and 2) I got to drive all over campus in a big red van. And when I say all over campus...I mean on the side walks and all!)

River Falls is 5 1/2 hours away from our house. 

It was totally worth the 11 hours we spent in the car.

Moving on to the good...it is graduation party season, horse show season and most importantly wedding season! In the past couple weeks we have been to a graduation party in IL for my cousin Missy, an actual graduation ceremony for my cousin Tom, we have been to 3 horse shows AND I have second shot another wedding with the lovely Kayla of Kayla Richards Photography. 

So, for your viewing pleasure...here are a few from the horse shows:

And a preview of the wedding from this past weekend:

I am also planning our wedding (ok...Mike is helping too...but I am the keeper of everything wedding haha). Which is going well...I will have some more posts on that coming up! I am so excited to start making everything for our wedding! I will however share with you a photo of our rings:

I was so excited that we finally found Mike's band :D

I also found this cool Sketchbook project while I was searching for wedding stuff. You sign up, they send you a sketchbook, you draw in it, send it back and it GOES ON TOUR!!! Sweet. So literally TONS of people get to look through these books while they are on tour. How freakin' sweet is that?! I am not much of an actual drawer...but I doodle. A LOT. I am also pumped that this tour comes to Chicago next May. I can't wait to go and see it! 

So, when you see me carrying around this little book...you now know what its for :)

Thanks for stopping by :D 

I will be posting about this past weekend's wedding soon!

xoxo

Maggie :)

email me :) / visit my website :)

Wisconsin State 4-H Horse Bowl Competition

Last weekend (5/1/10) was rather eventful. I traveled to Wausau, WI with 2 teams of kids to compete in the annual State Horse Bowl competition. Now, I know some of you are asking "What in the world in Horse Bowl?!?!" Well, it is sorta like Jeopardy in that there is a judge that asks all sorts of horse questions and you have to buzz in to answer them. The main difference is that there are 4 players per team and you don't have to answer the question that is being asked in question form. In horse bowl there are 3 levels: beginner, junior and senior. The questions get harder with higher levels, although some of the questions that my teams had to answer were pretty hard! I had the pleasure of being the beginner coach this year. It was totally awesome to watch these kids learn! I am so proud of all of them! Now, you might also wonder why in the world I am a coach for said team. Well, back in the day (and yes, it was back in the day...like 10 years ago!) I was super involved with the horse and pony project in Sheboygan County (my home county). It is also my way of giving back to the community. Sheboygan county is one of the largest counties in the whole state for horse and pony members! It can be crazy competitive and crazy tough to place in your classes...but I have to say it is probably one of the friendliest counties! Which, in my eyes, is a HUGE plus. I love seeing the kids congratulate each other on accomplishments no matter how small or large. :)    Anyway, here are some photos from the day...enjoy! :)

 The beginner score board...my teams placed 4th and 5th, which means they both placed top 10!

Said top 10 ribbon :)

Anxiously waiting for the results!

Beginner - Sheboygan Team A

Beginner - Sheboygan Team B

Intermediate - Sheboygan Team A

Intermediate - Sheboygan Team B

I wanted a picture of all the teams...but the seniors were competing while I was snappin' photos, so the two photos on the left are the chaos that happened while trying to get the teams to look like the photo on the right :)

And, because they are kids :) I had them do a goofy pose! Not everything in life has to be serious!! :)

Congratulations again Sheboygan County!! You all did a wonderful job!!

Maggie 

email me :) / visit my site :)

Open 4-H Speed Show

On Saturday August 1st, I had the chance to spend the day up at the Fairgrounds taking pictures for the Sheboygan County 4-H Open Speed Show. It was very interesting for me because when I was showing horses I did not show speed, although I thought it looked quite fun, I knew that my horse was not fast enough for racing around barrels and poles. Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

To view more photos from the horse show please visit:

http://mlphotoanddesign.com/zenphoto/index.php?album=open-speed-show&page=1

Have a happy Monday =)

~Maggie

4-H June Show

Ahh...summertime is officially here. And summertime brings with it Horse Show season!! This year I was asked by the Sheboygan County Horse and Pony Project to photograph thier annual open show known as the June Show. Here are some of my favorites:

If you would like to see more photos from the June Show please visit:

www.mlphotoanddesign.com/horseshows.html

~Maggie