The Day Long Horse Ride

I can’t say that anything too exciting happened during this past week. We did continue to work on landscaping our yard with Saturday proving the most productive as you can already see a change from work put towards leveling out one section where we will re-install a new metal fence to separate our property and the pasture where some cows graze occasionally. It’s amazing how something completely opens up when you cut down a couple of trees and a mangled fence as well as destroying the tall weeds that could be mistaken for trees. I forgot or didn’t quite realize how big our backyard really was. Apparently with our irrigation we only pay $10/month for unlimited use and it is shut off the beginning of November and then turned back on the end of March. We’ll have our culinary water as backup for those times when the irrigation comes through really muddy from rainstorms in other areas or when they have to turn it off for those same types of reasons. I am just excited to finally have a lawn and a few other things that come with getting rid of the dirt lot to the back of us. I have found that it is nice to have Adam home when anyone comes by (which isn’t that often), but when people do stop by he seems to gain the same embarrassment that I have had for some time and is finally making it a priority to get a plan in place and work to accomplish that goal. I should just invite people over during the times he is home so that that motivation continues. I guess I would kind of be using people, but it is for a very good cause : ) On Friday morning Adam left at 5:30 for a day long horseback ride on a trail up to Kolob. I caught a ride with the wife of someone else on the trip and we drove up to where our ward was having an over night campout by the lake up there. Adam had arrived there at 6 p.m. He hasn’t been on a horse since he was young, so he knew he would be feeling pain for the next couple of days, but did not know that he would feel that pain of soreness right after he was done. We rode back with Adam in the truck and pulled the trailer with the horses back as well. I was kind of glad to have the excuse of getting the horses back, since the boys still have nights where they wake up and aren’t exactly pleasant or reasonable and I am always worried about that when opportunities for camping come up. I didn’t want the ward mad at us because they couldn’t sleep from two crying boys. I asked Adam how the trip was and if he could have just taken the same route on a 4-wheeler and he said, "No Way!" There was things they went up and down that he would never take a 4-wheeler on and he was surprised that horses would go up and down them. He even had a 'Man from Snowy River' experience as you can see from the first pic. The 2nd to the last picture is of a guy in our ward that is a hard core roughing it kind of guy. Adam said that the horses were so tired from the day long ride that only one horse with this 10 yr old girl on it was able to go up that part and the others got off and walked and so that guy grabbed on to his horse's tail to have the horse pull him up (his horse is actually the one that he let Adam use for the ride and Adam was really glad he got that one). Tyson and Lincoln thoroughly enjoyed sitting on Brooke's horse before they were loaded up. If those boys could have a horse they would be in heaven. Saturday evening we went over to the demolition derby at the fair. We left Lincoln with g-ma & g-pa and somehow Tyson talked Adam into letting him come along, which I was looking forward to a date with just Adam, however Tyson was actually a very good boy and easy to please. We watched the fireworks at the end and then sat and waited for a while as the crowd dispersed and clogged the exits. On our way out we found someone from our ward that was distraught as her and her daughter did not have a ride home and her cell phone died and they didn’t know what else to do. We offered them a ride home and ended up taking the daughter as the mom had another option that came up. She hasn’t made the best choices in life and actually does not have custody of her daughter, but her mother takes care of her daughter. I just feel so bad for her and the struggles and pain that she inflicts on herself. Throughout the week Tyson was given the responsibility to feed the neighbor’s cat. He did very well and was so responsible walking over by himself with the food and giving the one scoop and checking the water and then coming back. On Wednesday Adam and I went to the temple. We finally were able to have an individual sealed to his parents, which he has been waiting for since 2008. I found his card caught in the back of a shelf next to the computer not too long ago while cleaning it out and it has been on my mind to get the work done for him. I feel much better now after having done that. Today I taught Tyson’s class and ended up with Lincoln in there as well since he somehow managed to wet his pants through his diaper while sleeping on Adam’s lap during Sunday School.