Crossroads Connection

09/06/2026

And just like that all six spots are SOLD OUT! ♥️🥹🥰

So excited for this work shop! Thank you to each of you ladies for trusting us to join us for this workshop! Going to be a good one! 🥹♥️

Hope you are all enjoying your holiday weekend ♥️ ill be reaching back out when we get back in town ♥️

Have you ever walked away from a conversation thinking…

“Wait. That is NOT what I meant.” 😅

You knew what you were trying to say.
You knew what you meant.

But somehow, what the other person heard was… not that.

Here’s the thing: we’re communicating long before—and long after—we ever open our mouths.

Our intention. Our body language. How clearly we ask for what we want. Whether we’re actually listening or just waiting to respond. What we do when we aren’t being understood.

And horses have a pretty incredible way of showing us all of it.

I’m excited to bring Crossroads Connection to Achy Breaky Acres for this one. 🐴

On September 26, I’m hosting a small, hands-on women’s workshop where we’re going to explore the gap between what we intend to communicate and what is actually being received.

Not by sitting around talking about communication.

We’re going to experience it.

You’ll work through activities alongside the horses that challenge you to slow down, listen, get clear, work together, adjust when something isn’t working—and pay attention to what happens when your intention and your actions don’t quite match.

Because the cool thing about horses?

They don’t care what you *meant*. 😂
They respond to what you’re actually communicating.

And there can be a whole lot to learn in that gap.

You don’t need to be “bad at communication” to get something out of this. This is for women who are curious about themselves—how they listen, how they lead, how they work with others, and what they might discover when the usual words are taken out of the equation.

🐴 No horse experience necessary
🐴 All activities are non-riding
🌿 Limited to just **6 women**
📍 Achy Breaky Acres — Sparta, WI
📅 Saturday, September 26 | 9:30–11:00 AM
🎟️ $85/person

Message Crossroads Connection to reserve your spot.

Come curious. The horses will handle the honest feedback. 😉

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Q6nY1paKx/

09/05/2026

One of my favorite things about horses?

They don't B.S. you.

A horse isn't going to say "it's fine" while quietly keeping score for the next six months. 😂

If something feels unsafe, confusing or like too much pressure, they're going to tell you.

They might move away. Brace. Shut down. Push back. Get louder. Or simply stop engaging.

The interesting part is that humans feel those things too.

We feel when something is off.

We feel the tension in a conversation. The disconnect between someone's words and their body language. The relationship where we're constantly overriding ourselves. The moment we should speak up, wait, ask differently, or change direction.

But then our brains get involved.

Maybe I'm overreacting.
Am I overthinking?
I don't want to disappoint them.
I don't want to make a mistake.
What if they get mad?
What if I don't find better?
Maybe I should just try harder.
Maybe I misunderstood.

All the what-ifs and maybes.

Horses don't spend three days writing a dissertation about whether they're allowed to feel uncomfortable. 😂

They respond with the tools they have.

Working with them gives us a really interesting opportunity to slow all of that down.

What is the horse communicating?
What are you communicating?
What happens when there's pressure?

Do you push harder? Back away? Freeze? Give in?
Can you set a boundary without feeling guilty about it?
Can you change your approach when something isn't working?

Can you trust yourself enough to make a choice without knowing exactly how it's going to turn out?
Can you lead without controlling?
Can you listen without abandoning what you need?

That's where working with horses gets really interesting.

Because it isn't really about learning how to handle a horse.

It's an opportunity to notice how you handle relationships, pressure, boundaries, trust, choices, frustration, and change.

The horse just has a pretty incredible way of showing you what's already there.

09/04/2026

I've been thinking a lot lately about connection.

We're made for it. With God. With people. With animals. With the land and the world around us.

"For where two or three are gather in my name, there am I with them them.” — Matthew 18:20

But anywhere there's connection, there's also the potential for friction.

And sometimes I think God has a sense of humor about who He puts in our lives. 😂

The anxious one finds the avoidant one.
The person who wants to talk it out finds the person who needs three business days to process.
The boundary-pusher finds the recovering people-pleaser.
The "I'll do it myself" person finds someone who desperately wants to help.

Horses aren't much different.

Some are incredibly sensitive. Some have learned to tune pressure out. Some want to be right in your pocket. Some would prefer you kindly remain over there, thank you very much. 😂

And none of those things automatically make someone—or a horse—good or bad.

They create a relationship.

And relationships give us opportunities to notice things.

What happens to me when you don't respond the way I expected?

Do I push harder?

Do I shut down?

Do I leave?

Do I abandon what I need to keep you comfortable?

Do I assume your reaction means I did something wrong?

Do I actually listen and adjust?

That's one of my favorite things about working with horses.

They don't care about the story you've told yourself about who you are.

They respond to what you're actually bringing into the relationship.

And if we're willing to pay attention, there's a whole lot we can learn there.

09/03/2026

Tavin would like everyone to know that enrichment is VERY serious business. 😂

This boy explores the world like a toddler — with his mouth.

My sweater? Mouth.
His mom's tail? Mouth.
Anything within reach? Probably mouth.

So instead of spending the next ten minutes telling him what not to put in his mouth, I handed him something he could.

Enter: the ball. 😂

And honestly, there's a lesson in that.

Sometimes redirecting works a whole lot better than constantly correcting.

With horses. With kids. And probably with ourselves, too.

Give all that curiosity and energy somewhere productive to go... and sometimes they'll take it from there. ❤️🐴

Although in Tavin's case, “productive” may be a generous description. 😂

09/02/2026

If someone ever invents glasses that let you look at a place and see everything that's ever happened there, I will be first in line.

I LOVE touchable history.

Not just reading about what happened somewhere — standing there and trying to imagine it.

Jamie and I hiked Black Hawk Rock during our camping trip, and I got to share some of that wonder with her.

This valley has held people for thousands and thousands of years. The Upper Kickapoo Valley has more than 450 identified archaeological sites — burial mounds, rock shelters, petroglyphs, camps and village sites — with evidence of human life here stretching back as far as 12,000 years.

And then there's the land itself.

Standing up there, I can't help trying to imagine it before us. Water carving its way through these valleys. Sandstone exposed layer by layer. Forest coming and going. Animals moving through. Generations of people standing on some of these same ridges.

Then thousands of years of Native history. The Ho-Chunk and other First Nations whose ancestral homelands include this valley. Settlers. Farms. Floods. And eventually an enormous federal dam project that would have turned this valley into a 12 mile reservoir, burying all of this history and beauty — before construction stopped. Today, instead, we get the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.

I've heard stories about the spiritual significance of high places like this to the Native people who lived here, and I shared some of those stories with Jamie as we climbed. I don't pretend to know or speak for traditions that aren't mine, but I do understand the feeling of standing somewhere like that and wanting to pray.

So when we reached the top, I asked her if she wanted to pray with me.

She said yes
I thanked God for the beautiful place we were standing in, for the world He created, and especially for the time I got to spend there with her.

Then I asked if there was anything she wanted to say.

She looked at me, smiled, and said:
“I love you, God.”

That was it.

And I thought... how perfect.

No big beautiful prayer. No searching for the right words. Just I love you, God.

Of everything we did on our camping trip, climbing Black Hawk Rock was arguably her favorite. It's the part she kept talking about afterward.

And that's the part that gets me.

We move through places so quickly sometimes that we forget we aren't the first story that happened there.

I want her to know how to stop.
Look around.
Ask questions.
Wonder who came before her.
Respect things she doesn't fully understand.
Be grateful for what's in front of her.
Talk to God without worrying about having the perfect words.

And feel very, very small sometimes — because I think there's something healthy about remembering that we are.

She thought the view was incredible.

I was watching another little human become curious about the world, its history, and her Creator.

I think I liked my view even better. ❤️

09/02/2026

Have you ever walked away from a conversation thinking…

“Wait. That is NOT what I meant.” 😅

You knew what you were trying to say.
You knew what you meant.

But somehow, what the other person heard was… not that.

Here’s the thing: we’re communicating long before—and long after—we ever open our mouths.

Our intention. Our body language. How clearly we ask for what we want. Whether we’re actually listening or just waiting to respond. What we do when we aren’t being understood.

And horses have a pretty incredible way of showing us all of it.

I’m excited to bring Crossroads Connection to Achy Breaky Acres for this one. 🐴

On September 26, I’m hosting a small, hands-on women’s workshop where we’re going to explore the gap between what we intend to communicate and what is actually being received.

Not by sitting around talking about communication.

We’re going to experience it.

You’ll work through activities alongside the horses that challenge you to slow down, listen, get clear, work together, adjust when something isn’t working—and pay attention to what happens when your intention and your actions don’t quite match.

Because the cool thing about horses?

They don’t care what you *meant*. 😂
They respond to what you’re actually communicating.

And there can be a whole lot to learn in that gap.

You don’t need to be “bad at communication” to get something out of this. This is for women who are curious about themselves—how they listen, how they lead, how they work with others, and what they might discover when the usual words are taken out of the equation.

🐴 No horse experience necessary
🐴 All activities are non-riding
🌿 Limited to just **6 women**
📍 Achy Breaky Acres — Sparta, WI
📅 Saturday, September 26 | 9:30–11:00 AM
🎟️ $85/person

Message Crossroads Connection to reserve your spot.

Come curious. The horses will handle the honest feedback. 😉

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Q6nY1paKx/

08/31/2026

🎶 I'm gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club... 🎶

Ajax has officially entered his Chappell Roan era.

Gloria ordered this little man his very own hot pink fly mask and I cannot handle it. 😂 (Jamie is THRILLED! 😆🎀💝)

Practical? Yes.

Absolutely ridiculous on a tiny black pony?

Also yes.

10/10. No notes.

08/30/2026

She probably won't remember what we packed.

She might not remember which campsite we stayed at or what we ate for dinner.

But I hope she remembers what it felt like.

A fire we cooked over.
Sticky s'more fingers.
Being pulled down the river behind Mom's kayak.
Building multiple waterfront residences, campsites, vacation homes and pool for Mr. Duck all along the kickapoo.
Going to sleep dirty and tired and waking up outside.

There are so many things I want to teach my daughter. But the older she gets, the more I realize some of the most important things aren't really taught.

They're experienced.

Curiosity. Confidence. Problem solving. Trying something when you're not sure how it'll turn out. Being bored long enough to invent something. Paying attention to what's around you.

We spend so much time trying to give kids the answers.

Sometimes I think one of the best things we can give them is enough space to discover some things for themselves.

And maybe a s'more. ❤️

08/29/2026

I finally understand where “peeping Tom” came from.

Except mine is a peeping hen.

She sleeps on our front porch (because she believes shes too good for the coop 🤣) and apparently considers herself part of the household now. The second she hears us moving around in the morning, she's at the window.

Barking her turkey call loud and clear.

“Good morning. I see you're awake. Would you like to discuss breakfast?”

Privacy is no longer something we have here. 😂

Farm life is weird and I wouldn't have it any other way.

08/28/2026

Not every morning needs to start with a breakthrough.

Sometimes it starts with messy hair, tired eyes, chores to do and a horse dressed like she's preparing to rob a bank. 😂

I think we underestimate how much good there is in the ordinary.

The quiet walk outside.
Horses waiting for breakfast.
Dirt under your feet.
A few minutes before the rest of the world gets loud.
A horse choosing to leave the hay and herd to come say good morning

I've spent a lot of my life thinking I needed to be doing something to be moving forward. Lately I'm learning there is something to be said for simply being where your feet are.

Amara didn't need anything profound from me this morning. (Although she did appreciate the scratches in places she cant reach 😉)

She just needed me to show up.

And honestly, maybe that's enough for a lot more things than we realize. ❤️