Horsin' Around

Throughout our stay in Iowa, there was a lot of Papa and Fish snuggling.  Papa really enjoyed the baby squishiness.

Of course, Finn wouldn't let Fish get ALL the Papa snuggles.  She was his little shadow -- demanding to know where Papa went the minute that he was out of her sight and whining to go with him whenever he was leaving the house.  In fact, they got to go pick up pizza together on one of our last nights in Iowa.

We had one last parade in Guttenberg.  We stopped in and ate at a restaurant run by some family before the parade.  Then we got to watch the parade with both sides of the family -- some from Papa's family as well as Mimi's family.

Gram Dawn, one of Mimi's sisters, was great at teaching Finn how to get candy from the people in the parade.  Dawn taught her how to wave at everyone going by to get them to throw freebies at her.

Then, we got the best surprise of the whole parade... Finn, Fish, & I got to be IN the parade! Gram Vicki and her family (Rick, Jered, & Kristin) own Belgian horses.  They had entered a horse & wagon in the parade.  They were the last ones on the parade, so they stopped where we were and the three of us ran out and jumped in the wagon!

I think that Finn was a little scared to be in the parade and have everyone staring at her.  But she was an excellent waver.  After we got out of the parade and away from all the people, Finn got to sit in the front seat with Kristin and Jered and helped drive the horses.

Fish fell asleep during the parade to the clip-clop of the horses' feet.  He woke up when we got back to the trailer and was all smiles.

Do you think that someone enjoyed driving the horses?

I'm going to let you in on a little secret.  Belgian horses are HUGE!  Jered and Rick stand at about 6'6 and they were only a couple of inches taller than the horses' backs!  When they unhitched the horses, we went over to say hello.  Finn was a little frightened of them due to their size.  But they were very gentle horses and put up with her little squeals of fright.

The following weekend, we headed over to Vicki, Rick, Jered & Kristin's to see ALL the horses.  There are almost 20 of them there.  We went over to see the baby that they had as well.  Finn loved walking around the farm.  And she particularly LOVED feeding the horses grass.  The horses were all so gentle and very curious of the little girl.

Finn even got out her camera and wanted to take photos of all the horses.  They had recently bought a horse called Jewel.  She was one of the horses that pulled in the parade.  We went to see her last.  She was quite the showoff.  When we saw us approach the fence, she ran out into the middle of her pasture and pranced back to us.  She waved at us by throwing her head up and down when she arrived back at the fence.  Then she sat perfectly still while I snapped away at her.

Finn picked me her first "flower" there as well.

When we got to see the baby, which was our last stop, Gram Vicki brought Finn in to pet the baby.  Finn wasn't have any of it.  The baby was pretty calm, but Finn thought the baby was way too big and way too scary for her to be that close to him.

We had such a great time in Iowa and can't wait for our next visit back.