This is my nearly-ten-year-old daughter:
At such a tender age, she has discovered love. Her first, truest, tenderest love. She has discovered horses.
This past weekend, to celebrate Canada Day, our family visited Jasper National Park. On Saturday, I took the kids horseback riding for the first time. I knew they would both enjoy it, and I had a feeling my older one would not just like it, but love it.
She was beaming when she met her mount, a lovely brown horse named Outlaw.
We had a lovely hour-long ride through the benchlands on Pyramid Mountain overlooking the Jasper Townsite with our great guide from Pyramid Riding Stables. But before we had even gotten back to the stables, she turned around and whispered to me: “can we go again Mom, pleeeeeease?” Um, sorry, No. Mom’s body couldn’t take another hour on horseback!
She had a few minutes to say goodbye to Outlaw before he headed out on the next trailride with the next little girl:
And then she spent the next several hours alternately moping, sighing and yes: crying; all because she missed Outlaw. She just couldn’t bear leaving without riding him one more time. We just didn’t have the time (or money, horseback riding isn’t cheap) to go for another trailride, so we compromised and took the girls up to say goodbye.
As luck would have it, Outlaw was one of only three horses who was outside the stable. And when my daughter walked up, he looked up at her, as if he recognized her. It was a touching moment:
First true love:
Oh, and of course, my seven year-old fell in love with her pal, Cisco, too:
Ohhh, I love it. Always wished I could have tried when I was younger (other than just sitting on a horse when having school trips to a farm). She has such a great connection with animals.
Aww….what a lovely lovely post!
weeepiong