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Scott took Macady skiing on President's Day. This was their 3rd time this season, and about Macady's 6th overall. Needless to say, I am quite proud of her. As I don't like skiing myself, I don't ever go up, but today I wanted to surprise her by coming to watch.
The weather was perfect, the feeling of being surrounded by gorgeous mountains, the sun was so warm and bright....it was a beautiful day, spent in one of my most favorite places in the world!
We topped off our day at Heise Pizza and thoroughly enjoyed spending this holiday together as a family.
I was on the phone the other day while cleaning the front blinds, and Scott was at the kitchen table reading the paper with his back to the living room when Paisley got very, very bored. She snuck into the bathroom, stole my loofah off the hook and decided to....well you can see what she did! Maybe she wanted a bath??? I thought it fitting that the vacuum cleaner and a fast-asleep Pard are both in the picture. Paisley is an important member of our family and we love hear dearly, but some days, we just have to wonder about her!
And after all that fun, she curled up and went to sleep!
They say that the hardest part of owning a horse is having to say goodbye...it's the truth. We lost our old man, Brownie last Monday, Jan. 19th. He had been leased to a loving family to help give their little boy confidence and responsibility this last summer, and as with so many other children, Brownie did his job the best way he knew how to help a little boy gain the trust and confidence he needed.
Last Sunday afternoon, we received a call that he was down and not getting up, and by that night, he was at the vets inside a heated, thickly-strawed stall. We prayed for his health and well-being, and hoped that he would feel comfortable and out of pain. By Monday, we knew that all the treatment he was getting was not working, and his heart was failing. So that evening, as the sun began to set, we made the kindest and most difficult decision we have ever had to make, and we chose to let our Brownie go home. Before he was loaded in the trailer, the children got to say goodbye to him one last time, and he told us all he was ready to go. Macady and I said a prayer with him, thanking our Heavenly Father for allowing us such precious time with him, and for all his honest service to others. Brownie was surrounded by those who loved him as he passed away, and he was taken home and buried with as much honor and dignity as we could provide for him.
Brownie was a very, very, very special horse to us, the Hunt family, and many other children whose lives he touched during his 30+ year tenure on this earth. We are so grateful for the time we spent with him, for the Hunt family who provided the utmost care during his last months and ultimately for the valor and patience Brownie showed to everyone he met.
I was surfing through blogs, and ran across a song that Macady sings to herself all the time, hoping that no-one will hear her. The first ten times she heard it on YouTube, she watched the horses run through the screen and just cried. And now every time I hear it, my eyes well up and I think of my beautiful, strong-willed, fiery red-head and think of how she gallops through life....literally and figuratively. Macady rode her first horse at 9 months old, and by age three, we bought Spirit, Wild Stallion of the Cimarron, and spent our entire Christmas morning watching it. I remember her stopping in the middle of all her present-opening and just staring at the screen for the rest of the movie. We are on our 4th DVD now, the others were so scratched from use! I remember thinking that she was as wild and free as the horses she watched and I remember vowing that her beautiful spirit would never be broken. I prayed that I would have a little girl that would love horses as much as I did........Who would have thought there would be a little one born to me that would love them even more?
We arrived in England one year ago today. We would spend the next 3 weeks absolutely reveling in our first big vacation as a family. Needless to say, I remember the days preceding our trip, and almost every day that we spent there. I remember not sleeping for 2 nights before we left, because I was cramming for finals...my last one being at 5pm, in Pocatello 8 hours before we were due to drive to SLC. So I do remember being very tired, and we were still packing as we flew out the door. I remember crying like mad as I said goodbye to our little animals, and looking at their precious faces wondering why we were leaving so early. I remember barely making our SLC flight, our connectings, and the ever-so-long but very exciting trip over the Atlantic. And I remember seeing my Mum, Chris and Uncle Chris waiting for me at the airport. I remember hugging them all at once, wishing my arms were longer, and feeling my heart burst with happiness. And that was just the first day! So I am nostalgic, and missing, and wishing, and on the flip side, I am so grateful to be here with my other side of the family, in a beautiful wide-open country, blanketed in snow and listening to the ever-blowing wind, waiting for Christmas day.
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