CONGRATULATIONS, IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mary Anne Milleman is the proud owner of "Fidelity", a four year old Hanoverian gelding, 16.3, liver chestnut. He is sure to keep her well occupied since he is a high energy horse with a Dennis the Menace personality. He has 3 beautiful gaits and a nice uphill conformation with a very elastic way of going. He has already been shown here in Germany with blue ribbon placings at First Level. His future looks very bright as an FEI prospect. He is due to arrive in Miami on Dec. 14. Now that's what I call a good Christmas present! There definitely is an advantage to shopping here for a horse since you can see literally hundreds of horses within a very small area. Kind of like going to the ice cream shop and trying to pick your favorite flavor. Speaking of flavor, as I have already mentioned, the food here is very good, however, ordering can be a challenge when you don't speak the language. Mary Anne and I wanted a taste of home, so we went to the Kentucky Fried Chicken place in Paderborn. Then, we realized that we couldn't go through the drive thru since we don't know what to say, so we opted to go inside. Mary Anne jokingly said, "I'll just order a Number 2 Meal". And lo and behold when we got inside, they did have a number 2 meal and that's just what she had since her German is limited to knowing how to count. It worked out great until we realized that we didn't have any silverware and no idea what the German translation would be. So, once again, sign language worked out well. Even at Kentucky Fried Chicken, your meal comes on a china plate with real silverware instead of throw away plates and utensils. No waste around here. The other cute story that happened was when some friends of ours were driving through the German countryside and decided to stop at a local place for a bite to eat. Not knowing any German, when they were asked what they wanted to order, they just repeated what they had heard the lady at the next table order. The only problem was, when it came, it was meatloaf and our friend was a vegetarian. But, by that time she was so hungry she ate it anyway and actually found it pretty tasty! On the home front, Donneur and Dolly both trained exceptionally well today. Dolly had her best day yet with wonderful halfpasses and predictable pirouettes. Her neck is growing larger by the day, she has really blossomed under this program. Donneur is really getting his canter under control and his piaffe is incredible. I think I got a back handed compliment from one of the Swedish girls here. She told Mary Anne that in Sweden, they don't think the Americans know how to ride and that every horse that gets exported to the US gets ruined with bad riding. Now she has seen that there is at least one good American rider........