Horses!

During our trip to Snowflake this summer, Brisbane fell in love.  With horses.  Mack's parents own two horses that are corralled in their backyard.  Mack often gets hoodwinked into taking the nieces and nephews for rides on the horses when the family gets together.  Our kids have never been the slightest bit interested (Reese and Jessenia were terrified and Brisbane has always been too little).  But this trip, Brisbane wanted on a horse. Bad.  Mack was super busy the whole month with his rotation and our quick trip to Utah took up an opportune horse riding weekend.  But on our last day in Snowflake, Mack saddled up Teancum for the kids to have a ride.

 The horses don't like to be separated.  The brown horse, Flicka, is the mother of the paint, Teancum, and whenever Teancum is taken out for a ride, Flicka has a meltdown running all over the corral.  It also causes Teancum to be very stubborn on the ride and it isn't always safe for little kids with him bucking and refusing to move.  So we solved that problem by deciding just to have the kids ride around the corral, where Flicka could follow at her leisure.  For those who are wondering why I don't just saddle up and join the fun, I will let you in on a not so secret... I am terrified of the horses.  Mack had me get on Teancum once and he totally bossed me around because horses smell fear...and I reek!  Plus Flicka is a little old to be ridden.

 Brisbane had to go first.  Two reasons.  One:  There would have been much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth if he was denied for one more second.  Two:  The other kids weren't completely sure that they even wanted to ride the horses.  They are genetically related to me.  But rest assured, I lied and told them it was totally awesome and fun (because I don't want my kids to grow up being afraid of everything like me).
Brisbane LOVED it!  When it was his turn to get off he pretty much just wanted to chase Teancum, Mack, and whomever else was riding.  Yeah, kids don't understand that rule, "Never walk behind a horse!"

 Jessenia is second bravest of the bunch, so she went next.  She was not nearly as excited as Brisbane, but agreed that it was a good time.

After Reese saw that nobody was mortally wounded from the horse riding, he took a turn.  I think he thought it was ok.  He probably would do it again, but I don't think it is his primary goal in life to be an avid horseman.
As soon as Reese was off, Brisbane needed another turn.  And it has pretty much been non-stop horse-mania ever since.  As soon as I got home from Snowflake, he was begging to go back and "ride the horseys!"  My mother has been buying books about cowboys and horses and sending them to us just to feed his obsession.  He has stolen Reese's two horses from Reese's Lincoln Logs set and claimed them as his own.  And every time we drop off or pick-up Jessenia from school, we drive by a place that boards horses.  We are talking dozens.  He lets me know every time that we are coming up on the horseys.  When we get there, he yells, "HORSES!  HORSES!  HORSES!" over and over again until I acknowledge that there are in fact horses.  (Bear in mind that we have been doing this three days a week for over two months now).  Then he proceeds to tell me that all of the horses are named Teancum.  And we can't ride Flicka, because, "she too old" (in sad pathetic Brisbane voice).  In fact, the kid knows every horse within ten miles of our house and lets me know when we are about to drive by one.  Because wouldn't we all hate to miss that?
And now he wants to be a horse for Halloween.  I am still trying to convince him that the chicken costume we own is good enough for a two year old.  But I am starting to cave.  We will see.