Visiting Utah

After leaving almost exactly one year ago, Joshua and I flew to Utah for 10 days. Brian was able to fly out for Labor Day weekend too. We had a lot of fun. Here are some of our adventures.

We got to watch Emily run at a cross country meet. This is her first year doing it and she is having alot of fun. Joshua had alot of fun playing with his aunts and uncles. He loved all the attention.

My mom bought this basketball hoop that would cheer whenever you made a basket. Joshua started demanding cheers for everything he did. He would throw his arms up in the air and make sure everyone did the same. It was like he was leading the wave.

We went to a nearby park a couple of times to feed the ducks.

The park had this tiny stream that Joshua spent forever playing in. We went to the zoo. They had baby snow leopards, and baby tigers.

And a baby giraffe.

Joshua had alot of fun at the zoo, but he got tired.

Joshua also had alot of fun with the animals at my parent's house. He was so pleased when he learned how to pet Tuffy. He would giggle everytime he did. He loved looking at the bigger dogs through the windows. He would just point and say "dog" over and over again. It took him a while to want to touch the bigger animals, but at the end he would do that too.

And of course we rode the horses. The first morning I was there I went to go see Red. He just stared at me, like wondering if it was really me. I let him sniff my hand and he got this look of recognition and said hi before he went back to eating. I was able to ride most of the days I was out there; I forgot how much I missed it. I even hopped Red over a couple of really low crossbars. After being apart a year we didn't have the strength or stamina to do much, but we both had some fun and relazing ride.

I got Brian to come out and ride spunky BK one day with me. Brian didn't remember everything my mom taught him when we rode in Utah, but he remembered enough to keep BK from going too fast and getting out of control.

Joshua got to ride a pony for the first time.

We put him on the 25 year old shetland Patchie. My mom bought Patchie years ago for my sister to ride and both my mom and I have rode Patchie in her spunkier days. So Joshua is the third generation to ride her.

Joshua absolutly loved riding. He kept going alot longer than we expected, just full of grins.

One time he was riding Emily came out to ride too and Joshua kept getting off of Patchie and then we figured out he wanted to ride on the big horse with Emily.

My parents insisted on a family picture with everyone in it. There was one picture where everyone looked great except check out Joshua. Little Stinker.