I guess now is just as good of a time as any for updates.
Echo is no longer being leased by the girl that was riding her. I had made the difficult decision to sell her. Lauren went to go check in on her, ride her and see how she was doing to proceed with selling her for me. However, what she found was an underweight mare with some new bad under saddle habits. Nothing terrible under saddle, all correctable, but the weight bothered Lauren and wasn't comfortable riding her in that condition. We decided it would take 6-8 weeks to get her to a comfortable weight to have her riding again and another 6-8 weeks to likely correct a few things under saddle. With that, I found an alternative route to take with her. I still own her, but she is now living with friends who are going to breed her this year for a foal to race. She knows them and if anyone else is going to have my horse for nearly two years, there's no one I'd rather have her with. No one.
As for Dakota and I... we will probably be moving. Again. Last Wednesday I lost my job. Something I'm completely ok with. About three weeks ago I had a reality check about the job and some health issues possibly going on so two weeks ago I had already started searching for new jobs here in Louisiana. If I decide to move of substantial distance, the job I had here will at least pay for Dakota and I to move. I'm relieved I had the Echo situation figured out before this hit, one less thing to organize. My lease is up on my apartment the end of March so if I can't find anything job wise here or elsewhere I guess I'll be moving back to Kentucky or Michigan (ugh). Kentucky is far more likely because well... I can actually find a job there.