Horses

Joy has always been a horse lover!

But she has never had the chance to actually ride a horse until last week when the teens of our home school group went to a stable and took a trail ride! Our boys were not interested in going, but she couldn't wait to go!

This goose, which looks cute here, turned out

to be rather vicious and tried to bit my leg! Thankfully it only bit my jeans!

The girls were choosing horses by how cute they were, of course.

One of the girls picked a fuzzy looking mule.

Another one got a draft-horse-mix of some kind that kept things exciting by kicking horses near it on the trail. Oh my!

One of the other moms ended up with a horse that had asthma. (she felt guilty the whole ride, listening to it wheeze) Poor thing!

(There were some normal horses in the mix too) : )

I ended up with an old horse named CeCe that had a craving for Spanish moss.

Joy thought he looked like he was about to keel over.

She ended up with the horse that refused to ever let any other horse in front of it. Not even the trail guide! So, there was my girl leading the way for the other 9 of us and looking for all the world like she'd done it before.

Which of course, she hadn't.

In fact, she just looked so much like she belonged on a horse that that is probably why no one gave her the 30 second talk on how to steer and stop! Bless her heart. (I'm glad I didn't know that) She figured it out though.

My horse was happy towards the back of the line as long as it wasn't dead last. Then it would trot and cut in front of someone else. I was concerned about Joy WAY up in the front, some times out of sight. I didn't have a clue that her horse had this leader mentality thing going, so I was calling to and saying NOT so helpful things from the back of the line like:

"Hey Joy, slow down."

And "Joy, let Ms. Karen lead us! She owns horses!" lol
I was just clueless!

And Joy's favorite: "Joy, take some pictures while you're riding!" (Apparently I said that after her horse bolted into an unexpected gallop which was very scary for her!)

But she gave it a try and she managed to get this picture of the back of her horses head. lol

(Bless her sweet heart. I'm glad she forgave me later) : )

This was truly, the horses taking us for a ride and NOT the other way around.

At the halfway point her horse turned around and started leading us all back to the stables after 30 min. -I think it had done this before. ; )

Doesn't she look cute on a horse?

So, that was our fun day.

-Joy hanging on for dear life while trail blazing and me, trailing behind and stopping for all the Spanish moss in sight.

She wasn't sure she liked horse back riding after that. But once we got home and Daddy told her how much he'd love to go horse backing riding with her on one of their dates, she was in!

I think she will have a lot more fun without me there. LOL

I'll be sure to remind them to steer clear of the goose. ; )

~Becky