Skip Thinks He's Getting a Horse for His Birthday

Skip's first time on a horse. This was Sleepy.

Zadie with my dad's cousin Mark, who owns a working ranch and is a roper with excellent roping horses (that hopefully my kids' didn't screw up!)

I think I've mentioned before that Skip really think he's a cowboy. My dad outfits him with Wranglers, boots, and cowboy shirts and I have to admit he pulls it off pretty well. He's got the swagger and everything. Sadly for him, he lives in L.A. with parents who have zero equestrian ties and so he's about as far off from being a cowboy as he can get. I feel kind of worried about when that reality sets in.

He actually had his first experience "riding" a horse when my parents took the kids to the ranch recently (I think Zadie sat on a horse when she was younger for a bit). My dad's cousin Mark and his wife were kind enough to go through a great deal of hassle and hauled horses down from their ranch to meet up with Skip and Zadie and their cousins. And then they let all the kids take turns riding the horses in the corral.

Both Skip and Zadie absolutely loved this experience and it was the highlight of their whole trip. They came home talking about good ol' Walter and Sleepy, their two favorite horses.

Now Skip thinks he's getting a horse for his birthday. My dad thinks it's karma since I badgered my parents so much about buying me a horse. I was very persistent and truly couldn't understand how they could stand in the way of my life's calling. Not to mention my older brother had a horse named Lightning when I was very little (maybe someday I'll devote a blog post to all the really cool experiences my older brother got to have that I'm still very jealous of!). Anyway, I've been trying to explain to Skip that there's no way in the world that he's getting a horse for his birthday, so hopefully he won't be disappointed.

If so, I blame my father.