Greenhorns

Well, we got a new kid saddle for the kids to use on Sugar. She and Appy got lots of experience over Thanksgiving weekend. They were both rode for about 3 solid hours over Thanksgiving weekend. Believe me. Those two aren't used to that much activity...


Neither was my nephew. Of course, he is an adult sized 11 year old. In a kid saddle. He hasn't quite mastered moving with the horse. Consequently, he moved, well, err....I think the picture speaks for itself. At this point of the ride, he was getting, ummm, well...

Hmmm....How do I say this?

Sore? Yeah. Let's go with that. He was getting sore. So, he was trying new positions to relieve some....Shall we say "pressure?"


Now, these two goof balls got their fair share of riding too. Of course, neither one of them are capable of inactivity for more than 8 seconds, so they spent their "down time" on the hay bales.


After we were finished catering to the kids, Dad & I went for a little ride. Did I mention it was Thanksgiving? That means deer season. I'm pretty sure we were taking our lives in our hands by riding at this time of year. And, we didn't even have on blaze orange so we could be easily spotted. Do you see the deer in the distance in this photo? We scared them up while riding. You can barely see them because my camera was zipped in my pocket, and by the time I dug it out, they were nearly gone... My dad said there are more deer than rabbits now. Sure enough, we saw 4 deer and only 1 rabbit in all of that time riding. Weird. Maybe it's due to the mountain lions. Or coyotes. I don't know, but it sure is weird to not see rabbits. However, we did see one armadillo. That reminded me of my grandma, Shootsmanyarmadillos. Go read about her here.

After all their hard work, it was time for the horses to get a treat for reward. My dad tried to stay out of the picture, but I'm quick. See the horse in the front? That's Appy. Believe it or not, he used to be nearly as dark as Sugar. With lots of speckles, of course.

Anyway, as you can see we had a great day. Sugar is fulfilling her purpose in helping the next generation learn to ride a horse on a trusty mount.....

Hey, funny story here. Dad asked me early in the day if I was brave enough to try riding Sugar double later on. "Sure. Why?"

"Well, I just want to see how she does with two riders." This statement mystified me, and I failed to ask for more details.

Fast forward to my cousin Beth showing up with her kids. Her son Sawyer was afraid to ride alone. My niece Sarah was on Appy, and I tried to assure him that Sugar would just go where Appy went, but he was not sure. His brother Seth, who I think is a Senior, volunteered to ride with him. Initially Seth was going to sit up front, but obviously he couldn't fit the kid saddle, and I didn't want to change gear. I completely forgot my earlier conversation with Dad and though Seth tried to balk, I bullied him into riding behind his brother.

Fast forward to about 4pm. Dad said, "So, are you game for trying to ride Sugar double?"

"Yeah. Why do you want to see how she does with 2 adults?"

"It's not two adults. I want to see how she reacts to the weight and legs dangling down her back. Remember when we bought her they said she pitched with saddle bags."

*Crickets chirping*

"OOOOoooh....Well, I'm not really worried about that any more." I said, laughing.

"How come?" I explained that I hadn't paid close enough attention to what he was trying to say earlier that day, and she did just fine with Seth and Sawyer. Sawyer knew absolutely nothing about riding, and Seth has maybe ridden 3 or 4 times before that day.

Dad just laughed and decided he wasn't going to worry about that any more.

That's what I'm here for Dad. Got a worry? I'll blithely blaze through life, never even considering what might happen. I had a friend in South Texas who told her parents that any time she was afraid to let her kids try something, all she had to do was send them to my house, and I'd have them do it without even thinking about it...

The Zoo

We made a racing trip to the OKC zoo today before we had to pick my sister Paula up from the airport. I originally thought we would have 4 hours to look around, but it turns out the zoo opened an hour later than I originally thought. However, we did get to look around 3 hours, and that's all this group of kids could survive.

You would not believe the litany of:

My feet hurt.

I want to ride the tram.

I'm hot.

I'm tired.

I'm sweaty.

It's too far to walk.

I think we must have walked at least a mile already.

However, at the first sight of a mister they would all run as fast as they could to stand under it. Logan actually said, "It's a good thing we didn't have time to be here all day, or I would have needed a wheelchair."

What?

That, Gentle Reader, is obviously why my sister & us will never make a trip to Disney World! Yes, it was hot. Yes, it was so dad gum muggy that my underwear got all sweaty. Wait. Was that too much info? Well, it's true, and all of you know it. That is the worst feeling. Yuck. But still, these kids are young. What is wrong with today's youth? Have we coddled them to the point that they can't take a little sweating and sore feet to look at some zoo animals.

The boys were too funny. They talked about seeing the alligators, pythons, anacondas, fish, monkeys, etc. It was a mad dash to see them. We simply had to hurry. Then, when we would get to whatever animal they were dying to see, they would look at it for 5 seconds and be done with it. It was comical. Of course, it didn't bother the girls or me. We had seen all of the animals several times.

So in review, here's the scenario:

It was hot.

The kids were exhausted with less than 3 hours of wandering the zoo.

Certain animals were "must sees."

These animals had to be seen as quickly as possible, and then required 5 seconds of observation.

The sight of a mister alone can give the energy boost equivalent to 12 soft drinks.

Cousins

Hey, did everyone have as much fun over Memorial Day as I did? I got to see my cousins. I hadn't seen most of them since last Memorial Day, and that was very briefly. It was great fun getting our kids together and remembering the fun we had growing up. It was a high time of cotton wood trees blowing until it looked like snow, ticks, and mosquitoes! Just kidding...We had a great time.

We went to a municipal park near the town where Studmuffin grew up for Memorial Day. It's a beautiful park with camping, a natural spring fed pond for the kids to fish in, golf for the adults, and nature hikes! My girls had great fun spending time with their cousins (my cousins kids.) And, anyone who is wondering who the cutie in the orange stripe shirt is, she's my Aunt Christina's niece. But, she's a cousin as far as everyone here was concerned!

Sadly, my sister Paula was unable to come, so this handsome little guy was totally outnumbered. It was slightly improved when my cousin Dusty arrived with his little guy. However, he doesn't seem to disturbed to be surrounded by a gaggle of girls does he? He is truly one of the most beautiful kids I've ever seen. He will definitely be a heart breaker.

Now, this group was trouble. It was great seeing the old gang together again. We all grew up together (obviously, since we're cousins. Duh) We used to spend so much time together in the summer. I remember I thought my Aunt Christina was the most patient woman alive, and that she never lost her temper. Actually, I still think that. When we would all get together at my grandparents, we ran around like wild Indians. I got tickled at my Grandma Dolly this weekend. She kept scolding us that we weren't watching our kids closely enough. We ran all over the place growing up, and certainly no grown up was keeping an eye on us! One time my cousin Matt was showing us the dangers of a spring trap. He took a stick, just like Grandad Pat showed him, and sprung the trap to show us how tightly it could snap and break the stick. Unfortunately, he chose a short stick. The trap sprung...Right onto his hand. We had to run find an adult for that one. None of us were strong enough to get it off. Woops. Another time we found a machete, who knows where, and we were cutting down some small saplings or something to build forts. We got caught, and our fun was ended before anyone lost a finger. Then one time we were walking to the cliffs north of my parents house and my cousin Ben came to an abrupt halt. There was a rattle snake coiled on the ground right in front of him. He was afraid to move because he thought it would strike. We finally convinced him to move and we ran the whole way home to get my dad, who came and killed the snake. Do you see a pattern here? We ran off, no adults present, got into trouble, ran to an adult for rescue...Okay, so maybe Grandma was right to fret!

We also got to spend time with Studmuffin's family. We get to see this gang a little more often. The little princess in pink told me she had a new butterfly swimsuit and Tinkerbell flip flops, so she is ready to come see me and swim in my pool. As a matter of fact, they will all get to join us doing that very thing next week! Do you know how hard it is to get 6 kids to look at the camera and get a decent picture when there's 4 dogs running around, and the sun is in Bookworm's eyes, and they suddenly have 12 conversations that they must have that very minute? And that letter "L" cap just brings a tear to my eye. That is a cap from my home town, home of the Tigers. My nephew is playing ball there this summer even though he is from the rival town (yep Studmuffin and I grew up in rival towns.) Of course, he's still wearing OSU clothing, but someday I'll convince him he should cheer for the Sooners, if for no other reason than Crimson is way prettier than orange! And for those of you who don't realize, yes, my number one method for choosing a team must first revolve around colors. Hey, I just can't cheer for a team that isn't complimentary to my skin tone! We were sadly missing several cousins for this snapshot too. My in laws have 20 grand kids... But since we're scattered all over it's hard to get home at the same time.

Well, that's all the ramblings I have for you today! Have a great day!

Hey! I was just looking at the top picture and had a flashback! There was this group camping next to my family, and the man kept teasing the kids about bears and lions in the trees. It was late, and the kids kept running screaming through their camp ground. You'd think some responsible adult would have stopped them, but we were sadly lacking in those that day. Anyway, one of the little ones ran up and said, "Hey! That nice man that's been teasing us about bears and lions just gave us candy!" A nice man just gave my kids candy....Isn't that sort of opposite of what you want to hear come out of a kids mouth? Of course, he was a nice man, and he was just being nice, but considering we had also had the little ones playing on a homemade slip and slide made out of a sprinkler and a blue tarp, and they were running around in t-shirts and underwear...very little could phase any of us at that point. My cousin Matt pulled up, saw that we had his kid running around in a sprinkler in his underwear, and said, "So, I guess it's okay for an 8 year old boy to run around in his underwear at a public park now." Hey, they are just kids...let'em have fun!