Labor Day Weekend

Hope all of you enjoyed your long weekend (or at least I hope it was long) Our family packed up and headed up to Northern MN for 4 days with some friends of ours. The weather looked like it was gonna be a little iffy on the rain, but we took our chances. Friday was so hot you could stand still and just sweat. Saturday cooled down a bit but the wind started to pick up and it got cloudy. Sunday we wish we would have had long johns!!! Monday seemed like it was the best day out of the whole weekend just to bad it was the day we had to head for home. Anyway had to share our wierd weather with all of you. We got several long rides in on the days we where at the park. Some of the trails where either detoured or closed because of all the wet weather we had this year. We did get to ride off of them and what a variety of scenery. I need to learn how to make a slide show for all the pictures. You can see the neat clouds in the pictures and it just gave them such a cool look to them. The trails also varied from hardwood forest to open praire. They went around several ponds, wetlands, and small lakes (or puddle jumpers we call them). One of the trails we where on acctually had access to get down to the lake to swim with your horse but it was WAY to cold on the day we took that trail to do that. Every one had a great time and are looking forward to going back again next year at the same time. Most of the trails there where gently rolling hills but we got out of the hardwoods to hit the grasslands and coming out all you see is this gianormous hill you have to go up. Lane (my 2 year old) laughed the whole way up and Christian my oldest was saying yeee haaa (which surpised me). The horses really had to work on getting up that hill. Several of the smaller hills had stairs to help with the errosion and those where a blast, I thought anyway. Really made the horses think about where to step next and pay attention. You can really tell the trail riding season is winding down :( we saw some fall colors starting to come out. This is my favorite time of year because of all the colors and the cooler weather. Only have 2 months left and all our parks will be closed again for another year, so we are going to take advatage of riding now as much as we are able.

I had to share the last 2 pictures with you. Lane is starting to take the reins more and more and says "I can do it" I told my hubby we are going to have to be ready to start chasing him down the trail once he is offically on his own. He was really being goofy in the picture just as I was taking it. The other one with him and his water bottle, the sky looked so cool in that one, and we never did get rained on, but man it was windy! We tie a piece of twine to the bottle and one to the saddle so he doesn't drop it. Once in a while it forgets to get closed and Larry will have a wet leg on one side :)