Peppy Love

More Utah stuff.  I have some serious catching up to do...

In addition to loving on the puppies as I mentioned in the previous entry, Sam was also loving on Peppy.  Although Sam prefers to call him Puppy.  (The kid must have had puppies on the brain in UT...).  As usual, for the first couple of days in UT Sam was a little wary of the 4-legged creatures.  He was afraid they were going to eat him.  Fortunately, he quickly overcame his  tentativeness and was happy to be sitting in the saddle with Uncle Jake for his first ride of the summer.  Jake had just returned from a long ride on the mountain and was in a hurry to get to a softball game, but he very happily obliged the wish of his nephew and took Sam on a little ride with the promise of more to come. The next day, Jake kept his word and saddled Peppy up for the boys and led the stubborn old horse around the property.   Max enjoyed the ride, too, but didn't love it nearly as much as Sam.  

Brooks impressed his cousins by riding the horse all by himself...

After that first ride, Sam would beg to ride the horse every day.  Multiple times every day, in fact.  This wouldn't have been such a big deal if it weren't for the fact that Peppy is, as I mentioned earlier, old and STUBBORN!! (But very good with kids and unseasoned riders.)  To have to lead him around the yard was a very tedious task because he had his own ideas of where he wanted to go and how fast he wanted to get there and he was continually stopping for a nibble of grass or weeds.  After pulling and coaxing Peppy around the yard on several different occasions, I was ready for a change of scenery.  I thought maybe Peppy would be, too.   I actually thought it would be better and easier to just plop on a bigger saddle and ride along with Sam, thinking that a trip up Wide Canyon would be a nice variance.  Boy was I wrong.  Trying to ride a bullheaded horse with a child in the saddle was probably just as frustrating as leading him around the yard...

So I finally got Brooks and Max to lead him for me!! 

We took several rides down to Gramma Grapes house.  The first time Sam refused to get off the horse and visit.  He just sat there on a tied-up Peppy while the rest of us chatted.

Towards the end of our trip Sammy even got comfortable enough to handle the reins on his own!  I just had to occasionally help push or pull the old horse this way or that. 

  Sam is quite the little cowboy!  In fact, when we got back to Pennsylvania, he would pull out a pair of long pants (cuz that's what papa and Jake wear) and grab his boots and announce to me that he was wearing long pants so he could "ride Puppy today."  For the first couple of weeks he would ask me so many times if he could ride Peppy. When I would explain to him that it was not logistically possible since we were now a long way from Utah, he would sometimes get upset but other times he would say, "Okay, tomorrow then."    If only we lived that close!!

My super awesome friend Connie and her super cute little boy, Dominic, came down one day for a visit.  It was so nice to get to spend the day with her and get to know little Dominic.  Peppy provided a little bit of the entertainment for us on that day, too...

Sadly, I didn't get to go on a nice joy ride up in the mountains this trip like I wanted to.  I guess everyone was just too busy.  I did, however, accompany Jake on a cow-herding mission one afternoon (which has never been my favorite--those cows are pretty stubborn, too).  Well, our task seemed simple--we only needed to get one stupid cow and her calf up the mountain--but we failed!  I know I wasn't much help since I haven't done much riding as of late (and cow-herding in the oaky-brush was never my favorite anyway), but to make matters worse an electrical storm rolled in.  I was petrified of being struck by lightening.  On horseback, we were easily the tallest things around and numerous strikes had occurred in the area only days before.   I was certain I was doomed.  Jake had left me in the middle of nowhere to keep an eye on the momma cow while he looked for the wayward calf.  That stupid cow was looking for her calf too, only she was going the opposite way from where we saw her baby disappear.  So I am trying to chase and "herd" the momma cow all the while freaking out that a huge bolt of lightening was going to strike me to my death.  Not my favorite ride ever, but it was the only one I had this year so in retrospect it wasn't so bad.  Had it not been for the lightening it might actually have been outright fun...

Another major source of entertainment for the boys came in the form of 4-wheels.  My dad and Jake treated themselves (or the farm) to a couple of new toys which we had the great pleasure of riding.  The boys loved going on 4-wheeler rides.  In years past I had taken them on slow cruises around the yard on the old ATV, but recently the laws were changed and I was able to take them on actual rides up in the mountains.  It was a lot of fun. 

This particular vehicle (Arctic Cat?? Bob cat??-- I forget what they call it...), was quite impressive.  I never got a "lesson" on how to drive it so I was only ever a passenger, but the way it rode over big bumps and deep ruts on a narrow dirt trail at 75 mph was amazing.  The boys enjoyed it, too, and were quite disappointed that Mommy didn't know how to drive it, therefore after Paul left there were no more rides for them in this fun machine.

Papa took a very tired and cranky Jack on his first 4-wheeler ride.  I think that on top of needing a nap Jack was a little scared of his initial ride...

...He much preferred to push this little toy version around the yard...

We just had to take a quick trip to the sand hills during our trip.  It was insanely hot and therefore pretty miserable, but the boys had fun for all of the fifteen minutes or so we spent there...

I still have quite a bit of the Utah trip to cover.  Hopefully I can get to it quickly as I have a couple of birthdays to document as well!!