Friends, Horses, and Another Old Lady

My own little cowgirl....


and cowboy.

Yesterday Emma, Jackson, and I went out to lunch and horse back riding with my friend, Sarah, her daughter, Ali, and Grandpa Dick (Sarah's father). We had SO much fun! We started out going out to lunch at a museum cafe. So I ought to get this first story out of the way. The kids had been sitting and eating lunch for about 20 minutes and we were getting ready to go. They weren't being extremely quiet, but we were doing our best to continually remind them to calm down. At the point when we were readying to leave, I let Jackson out of his highchair and he just went running and squeeling away from our table. What would you do as a mother? I stood up and called him back and began to walk toward him. This is the run-in with the old lady. At the end of the isle there was probably a 70 year old lady sitting at her table and she started frantically slapping her hands and yelling at him to get away from her and back to his mother. This is where I came walking down to get him. He was crying (she was scary) and I was infuriated. I walked over to her and told her she was NOT welcome to talk to my child that way. She replied (yelling, mind you) "I will yellat him if he comes by my table again." Me: "I am his mother and you saw that I was coming to take care of him. Once again, you will NOT talk to my child again." And I walked away. That's my second run in with an old lady this week. I have a poor time expressing stories because of the emotion that gets built up in me. Do you have a hard time when people "mother" your children? I don't even yell at my kids the way she yelled at my kid. And I feel like I discipline my kids. It made me angry, though!

His horse wouldn't move and he was stuck out there for a couple minutes not knowing what to do. Finally, some other horses caught up with him and nudged him along. It was funny!

She looks so pretty on a horse!

Anyway, we made our way to this CUTE little pony farm that let's the kids ride this track going slow, medium, or fast. It was hilarious! To get the ponies going medium, a worker would kind of cackle and chase the pony a little just to get her going, and to get her fast they would do this around the entire track and the kids heads would just be bobbing up and down from the trotting. It was so fun to watch. Emma and Jackson both loved it! They would yell and wave at each other from across the track. Emma wanted to go on the faster horse (we'll have to go back!) and Jackson whined as we walked away, but was very fine when I told him we were going to ride on the choo-choo train.

I'm so grateful we have started getting close friendships with others. I have made some great friends since we moved here and I'm sure I will bawl my head off in three years when we leave here, too. I keep looking at friend's blogs from KY and seeing Brinn's tummy (slowly) grow and hear that Sarah had her baby and Denise (who fortunately I talk to cause she NEVER updates her blog) is busy doing what I'm doing! I miss you guys (and more of you) so much! I can't wait to come out for Thunder again!