Indiana Alpaca Invitational 2010

Show's over.....thank goodness.

I was soooo tired by the time we got home last night that I was asleep at 9pm and slept 'til just after 8. That's 11 hours of sleep. I never sleep that long and normally the thought of going to bed at 9pm would just make me laugh. I needed it I guess. As much fun as the weekend was, it was exhausting.

We attended the Indiana Alpaca Invitational in Fort Wayne this weekend. In respect for the Easter holiday, the show was held on Friday and Saturday instead of the usual Sat & Sun. Kind of weird because we were constantly calling Friday "Saturday" and Saturday "Sunday". It was a little confusing.

By the way, the Memorial Coliseum is awesome! (Yes, this is the same place the Nationals conference will be in May)

We left our farm on Thursday afternoon and traveled about an hour and a half south to get to Fort Wayne, IN. Absolutely beautiful weather. So nice in fact, it seemed like an April Fool's joke. Who would think that the first day of April it would be 80*? Not complaining at all. Nice weather meant nice looking and smelling alpacas. (Smelling was very important since the pacas rode inside our Explorer for the trip).

We took our little baby Dragonrider and our up and coming herdsire Beau Jangles.

This show had, by far, the most organized check-in. We got thru everything super fast and in no time we were setting up our stall. We were so excited to find out we were stalled right next to some friends of ours, Eric and Julia Young of Perfectress Ranch. It always nice to go through the anticipation and nerves with friends.

The animals remaining at home needed our attention too so when we were done setting up our stall it was back home for us. We pulled in after dark, did all of our evening chores then it was off to bed because the evil alarm was going to get us up at 5:30am. Yuck! :( I am NOT a morning person.

We managed to get up, get morning chores done and be on the road by 6:15. I'm still wondering how we actually managed to do that. It's all a blur.

Friday morning we showed Dragonrider. He is a 8 month old true black suri. He took 5th. The judge loved his density, fineness and luster, but thought he was a little small. He did say he would really like to see him again. Smallness can be fixed with a little more time to grow. Fiber characteristics can't really be fixed so I'm really happy with the judge's comments and we will let Dragon grow some more over the summer before we show him again.

Dragonrider showed really early in the day so we were able to spend the rest of the day visiting vendors and other farm booths. We saw a lot of friends and farms we knew and we also met some new farms that we may work with at some point in the future.

Friday was a lot of fun and the weather once again was an awesome 80* and sunny.

On Saturday there was a lot more people visiting the show. We passed out tons of business cards, brochures and stuff and talked a LOT. I'm not sure I sat down at all on Saturday. Come to think of it, that might explain why my legs and feet hurt so much. :o)

We had to wait all day before it was time to show Beau. He was patient though and took a second in his class. The judge had only good things to say. The boy that took first was just a little more and fully deserved that first place. It was a little funny when the judge was checking his fleece, he stuck his hand in and immediately went crazy for how soft his fleece was. After judging alpacas for 2 days straight and sticking his hands in every fleece there, he gushed over Beau's softness. That says a lot to me. I will happily take that red ribbon.

Did I mention I entered the photo contest they had? Anybody that knows me won't be at all surprised by that. I've been accused of being glued to my camera many, many times.

I entered 4 photos and 3 won ribbons. YEAH!! I got 1 first place and 2 seconds. I was actually more excited about the photos winning the alpacas. Maybe it's because I already know my pacas are award worthy? :o)

All in all, a very good weekend. Awesome pacas, awesome weather and great friends. Thanks to everyone that made this weekend possible for us!