Just Jump: Mobsters, Dogs, and Rain aka The Horse Show

Tina and I made plans to take her daughter and my niece to the horse show yesterday. I woke up with sinus issues plaguing me (my head is sucked into a vacuum cleaner, I swear!) and to rain. It only figured that because they said it was only a 20% chance of rain that it would actually do it. After consulting with Tina on what we should do, we decided to play it by ear and head that way. By the time I got Michaela picked up and heading towards Tina's house, it had stopped raining. But the drive over to McDonald's, where we had promised the girls lunch at, brought on the rain again. We let them play for a bit and the rain let up so off to Scottsdale we went.

Michaela is an animal lover...in particular she is a dog lover. Essentially for her, the trip to this horse show meant one thing -- seeing lots of dogs. And until I finally had to tell her no more asking, she stopped everyone we saw that had a dog and asked to pet their pooch.

Tina and I do the horse show as often as we can and are more than happy to sit and watch the competitions take place. For an eight year old and a five year old, this was not good times. So after watching two quick competitions we headed out to see what we could see.

Unfortunately due to the rain, West World was a great big mud pit and a lot of the barns were closed down as they were starting to cancel competitions for the day due to weather. One extremely generous owner of one of the larger barns did ask if the girls had seen a lot of horses and when he heard they had not, he not only allowed them to feed carrots to his horses, but he brought out one of his prized stallions for the girls to get an up close encounter. They were both thrilled and a little apprehensive at this large animal moving around.

We stopped to watch a couple more competitions where Abby inquired with a little concern if the English Pleasure Riders were actually mobsters as that is how she felt they were dressed. After Tina and I laughed and reassured her they were not mobsters, she settled in with Michaela to watch...and name...all the horses that were passing by. By then the rain had started again and we were muddy and tired. (I was wiped out!) So we headed back to Tina's house so the girls could play for a bit...and yep, "Aunt Chelle" took a nap on Tina's couch.

I love, love, love going out to the Scottsdale Show and already have plans to attend a couple times next year when it comes again (2 weeks every February, today is the last day). Hopefully there won't be rain the next time as I had really wanted to explore more, take more pictures, etc.