I Wanna Be a Cowboy

Any of you who know Daffodil, know that she is obsessed with horses. She always wants to ride them. And really, she does at every opportunity. Every opportunity so far has mostly been pony rides at fairs and farms. But this last weekend, she finally got to ride a horse. ALL BY HERSELF!! She was thrilled. Sophie and I shared a horse. I'm not really sure what I expected... maybe a longer saddle with a seat belt or something... but it wasn't what I thought. Sophie just sat on my saddle in front of me so I had to try to control the horse and keep myself on the horse and keep Sophie on the horse too! I was terrified, Sophie was thrilled, and Daphne was just totally cool because this is where she's meant to be. We had such a good time. Here are a few photos.

The Little Darlings waiting for the horses to get ready.



Here's Daphne on her horse Jester. This child had no problemo with riding the horse at all! The guy riding behind me even asked if this is something she does all the time because she's so good at it. As we were walking a thin trail through a swampy area, Jester decided to walk into the swamp. Did that bother Daphne? Not a bit. She just chilled there while Jester got a drink and blew bubbles with his nose under water! (I know the pictures are not of the best quality but seriously, it's kind of hard to take pictures while you're steering a horse, holding a baby, and hoping you don't fall off!)





And here I am with Sophie. I prayed in earnest for the first ten minutes and also tried to plot how I would get Sophie safely to the ground if my horse freaked out on me. Luckily, he didn't freak out. But he sure stopped to eat a lot. And he was a little snotty. I'm pretty sure it was purposeful when he walked too close to every tree so my knees kept getting whacked. A lot of our trek was far back in the woods where you couldn't hear anything but woodsy noises. It was great. But Sophie started whispering to me; "Monsters? Monsters get me?" I assured her they wouldn't. "Lions?" No. "Tigers?" No. "Giraffe?" No. "Horses?" Well, yes honey, we're riding horses!