All the pretty little ponies

Each month Rick and I each try to schedule time out with two of our children for some one-on-one time.  The fifth child theoretically gets time with Mom AND Dad to do something fun or something necessary and most months we’re pretty good about this.  The general idea is to spend a little time together,have a break from the crowd and we often look for fun that is “free”.

This morning Kaitlyn and I scraped a few quarters together and headed out the door for a little fun and conversation.   She’d been saving spending pennies for this activity and looking forward to it for some time.  I wanted to get going before it got too hot.

We headed out to the farm and Kaitlyn put her money on the counter to buy her own ticket for a pony ride.  Here she is, sitting on Black Beauty for her very first pony ride ever.

Kaitlyn said she was a little afraid of falling off but it was fun.  About 5 minutes after we were finished the thermometer hit 90 degrees and the ponies all had their saddles taken off and left the pony ride area to find shady resting spots.  It was too hot for them to work any longer.  We were lucky to have gotten a ride when we did but we were happy that the poor ponies got some heat relief.

We needed relief ourselves so we headed for a hike in the woods.  On the way we visited the pigs, turkeys, goats, ducks, chickens and we decided to help the farmer water the garden as well.  It was a scorcher and not even noon yet.  We stopped in the woods to listen to the silence.  It was Kaitlyn’s idea to listen to the quiet.  We heard lots of birds and insects and we investigated a small freshly dug hole and tried to guess what might be living in it.  We also saw lots of beautiful circular spider webs.

Quickly drooping, we decided we’d had enough of the great (humid) out doors so we made our way back to the van, our only working vehicle at the moment AGAIN!  We dug around and found a little more money so we could get some ice cream to cool us off.  Backwards lunches are fun to have, once in a while.  Kaitlyn ordered peanut butter chip and I got July’s special and one of my favorites… Peach with caramel.  We gave each other tastes of our ice cream just to try and both were very delicious we decided.  We had a nice morning together, just me and Kaitlyn.