Three days at Grandma's

We got home late last night from my folk's.  The dog had a ball, the girls had a ball, and I actually got a couple things accomplished.

I wrote in my last post how we picked apples.  We also trimmed the trees a little.

Trimmed branches make dramatic (if somewhat unwieldy) swords.

The dog and his cousins romped and ran and growled and played.  We drove them out to a field and let them all play, trying to wear them out.  My father doesn't want all these hairy beasts in his house, so the dogs all go to my sister's.  This time she had her own two boxers, our collie, my brother's short hair/border collie mix, and her stepson's lab/pointer puppy. She doesn't usually have all these dogs and was worried they were going to keep her and her husband up all night, so she wanted to give them a good run to wear them out.

On the way back from that walk we saw three deer in someone's front yard. Just driving along in the middle of the neighborhood, and there are three deer.

The next day the girls and I went on a horseback ride with my sister.  (This was the highlight of the trip for them.)  A friend of my sister's came to help, so there were three grown-ups to herd the two little girls, who both did very well at steering their own horses and obeying the orders called to them.  

"Pull his head up!"  
"Don't let him eat the grass!"  
"Don't let her get ahead of the leader or she'll run home with you!"  
"Pull his head up!"
"Remember you're in control!"
"Don't let her stop and talk to those strange horses on the other side of the fence or we'll be here all day!"  
"Pull his head up!"

It helps that the horses they're riding are very well behaved.  They do what they're told, if they're told firm enough to notice, and are not too prone to misbehave. It's also nice they're not the "stick your nose in the tail of the horse in front of you and never remove it" kind of horses.  My sister owns the horses she and Thing 1 rode, her friend owns the horse she rode, and Thing 2 and I borrowed horses from a family friend, who used to keep my sister's horses.  

Thing 1, me, and Thing 2

The horse we borrowed for Thing 2 is "half draft" which means she's a little stockier than the others, which are mostly Tennessee Walkers.   She also had to trot to keep up with the long Walkers, which explains why Thing 2 spent so much of the ride giggling hysterically.  Apparently when you're 7 years old having your bones bounced out of their sockets while trotting is fabulous entertainment.
Seeing the little Thing 2 on the back of that big half draft reminded my sister of a cartoon she'd seen once, so she had to take a picture, which turned out better than she'd expected.

"Does this kid make butt look big?"

We also picked out pumpkins from a neighbor of my sister's who sells them much cheaper than the grocery stores.
We were driving back to my parents' house for dinner when I saw some kids out on a corner wearing bee keeper suits, waving at cars and selling their honey. The house looked familiar and so I stopped and bought some Raw, Local Honey, and sure enough the kids in the bee suits belonged to a good friend of my sister's (whose big brother I used to date) who has become something of a farmer.  She came out and talked to us, then took us to her garage and showed my girls her hives and gave us a brief lesson on how they get honey from the hives. 

We had really gone to the garage to see giant pumpkins they raised.  The bee hives were actually a bonus.

We had a great time, and got back very late last night. I still haven't unloaded all the pumpkins from the car.

B&B &L&D

For Memorial Day I drove the girls and the dog up to my folk's house, 80 miles north. It is one of my very favorite escapes. In many ways I get to crawl back into the lovely childhood lack of responsibility. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, and Hubby helps out a lot with them, but at Grandma and Papa's house, it seems I do about 1/4 of the work. I am a slob and I let my mother do most everything, including half or more of the responsibility for my kids, I do about a third, and my dad picks up the rest. It is a lovely vacation for me.

The dog stays down the road a couple of miles away with his doggie cousins at my sister's, since dogs are less than totally welcome at my folks'. My sister's husband was working a lot of the weekend, so she hung out with us quite a bit. She took the girls horseback riding, or rather, the girls rode on the back of one horse while someone else led it around the pasture, either from another horse or on foot. The girls took turns being in front, or being by themselves on the horse for nearly an hour and a half.


In the movie, the girl on the horse in front is one of our favorite babysitters, her mother is my sister's friend who keeps my sister's two horses in her pasture during the summer.

The horseback riding is really Thing 2's treat. The first two days we were up there it rained, and she was pretty upset. Every time the sun peeked out from behind the clouds for just a minute she was trying to stir up a trip out to the pasture. She is the one who talks about being a "Horseback Rider" when she grows up. Thing 1 is much less enthusiastic about the horses. All the way out to the pasture, Thing 1 kept asking, "Do I HAVE to ride a horse?" But once we started, Thing 1 was the most excited about it, and the most exuberant. She kept hollering "This is So Much Fun!" And of course the dog had a great time running around the pasture with my sister's dogs. Fun for Everyone!

Gettin' outta Dodge

I didn't want to spend another weekend kicking around the house without hubby, so I decided to head 80 miles north to visit my sister and her family. She has horses, she has dogs, we love to go hang out with her.

Thing 1 got to play computer games without me bugging her to knock it off- I was too busy talking to my sister to notice.

 Thing 2 got to go horseback riding.

Kelso got to play with his doggy cousins.

We all relaxed.  It was lovely.

By the way, it should be noted that the dog now outweighs either of the girls.  At almost 6 months he's 50 pounds. 

Hubby got back Sunday afternoon, we left a little late, his plane landed early, and we raced south from my sister's to meet him at the airport.  It was so nice to see him!
The bad part is he leaves tomorrow morning for another week and a half stretch.  Galldarnit!!