Horseback Riding

Today Hailey had her first real horseback riding lesson and she LOVED it! in February I was perusing Craiglist and came across an add for a farm in Bothell called Willows Edge Farm that does Preschool aged horseback riding lessons and I just thought that was cutest thing. Hailey loves animals and gets such a kick out of riding the ponies at various events that we have been at that I thought this would be a fun extra activity to do a couple times a month, so I signed her up to start this week with one more lesson in 2 weeks.

Good thing I did it when I did as we were just notified that the farm is now closing down in preparation of their move and suspending all lessons after the 15th of April until further notice. They are trying to figure out what to do with future lessons but we will just be thankful that she was able to get a short taste of it and we will continue to look for a new farm.

I wanted to wait to surprise her as I knew she was going to be very excited. Boy was I right! When I picked her up after work tonight, I tried to play a game with her where she could guess what we were doing. When she figured it out she screamed - "I am going to ride a pony, I am going to ride a pony! It was very cute and got lots of laughs at the pure excitement in her voice. She talked non-stop all the way there, it was 45 min away, but the joy in her voice was great.

The lesson was only 15 minutes but totally worth it. They use  Norwegian Fjord horses which for those of you, including me, do not know about, they are a small horse that is the cutest and most friendliest of all which make them great for kids. During the lesson they are taught what stirrups are and how to get your foot in and out them while they are sitting on the horse. They learn how to command the horse to go "walk - on" and stop - "Whoa" Hailey picked this up right away and was very focused in learning all there was to learn. She is such a serious learner which is especially important when she is sitting on a horse by herself.