Last Saturday, October 16th, Michael and I took Lily to a small fall festival at a church just down the road from us. We had seen it advertised earlier in the week with signs for pumpkins, apples, bouncy house thingies, crafts, pony rides, etc., and thought it might be worth stopping by. She doesn’t usually like bouncy houses (although on Friday, she enjoyed going down a big bouncy slide with her playgroup friends – yay, Lily!), and although she loves looking at horses she’s obviously too young for pony rides, but we figured there might be something she could do.
We pulled in, and parked facing the field where they were doing pony rides.
As I surveyed the field with vague interest, I saw an ADULT riding the pony, with her small child in her lap.
It was at that point that I knew I was doomed.
As we predicted, Lily’s first words getting out of the car were about the ponies, and her desire to ride them. With a promise that we would come back to the ponies, we were able to explore the rest of the festival.
Here she is as she arrived on the scene.
She is clearly too cool to be seen with us.
I didn’t get pictures of some of the festival, but she was able to see some bees in their honeycomb and pet a chicken. She also got to see the church school’s mascot which was a person dressed as a cougar (I think it was a cougar – that’s my best guess). If you remember her experiences with McGruff the crime dog, you can guess how this went.
Yep, lots of high fives, and then longing stares as the cougar walked away.
After checking out the rest of the festival, we returned to the ponies’ field for my dreaded pony ride. To my great relief, they also allow parents to hold their child on the pony and walk next to them. I had had visions of my pony bolting and charging down Woodruff Road, so we picked option B with my hope that I could yank Lily off if need be. We bought our ticket for ONE rider, thank-you-very-much, and waited for our pony. Lily was very excited, and kept shouting pony and ride until we were able to get her mounted.
Here is a long-distance action shot. Doesn’t that look like a comfortable position to hold your precious child in while circling a field and trying to prevent them from falling off and plunging to the ground while also trying to keep your feet from getting stepped on by the pony? Yeah…it was as comfortable as it looks.
All in all, it was a cute little festival, and Lily loved riding her pony. They said she was the youngest rider they had had, and that she did super.
Oh, and the pony’s name?
War Party.
Funny how they didn’t tell me this until we were halfway around the track.
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