Horse, Store, Walking.

Today was a remarkably nice day weather wise. 99 is always an improvement over two solid weeks of 112 plus.

Near sunset, C and I decided it was cool enough to ride Junior (it's been a couple of months of too damn hot to ride).

I rode for a bit to make sure Junior remembered the drill, then let H have a go. She'd have probably ridden for hours if we weren't running out of sunlight, and C wasn't itching for his turn.

C got a pony ride with lots of sitting around letting Junior eat.

S got a pony ride - it was already dark by then, so we kept it really short.

We then let the crazy take over, and the girls and I walked to our local grocery store. About 2.5 miles round trip. It's the first time we tried walking there. The girls thought the one traffic light we had to navigate (with having to push the button to get the walk signal) was really neat. H pushed the button on the way there and S pushed it on the way back.

We came home bearing peaches and Gatorade. H carried the one for C on the way home.

All that, combined with karate for C today, all my usual chores, and cleaning the yard for garbage day, and my back thinks I'm stupid and is threatening to go on strike.

Hopefully it forgives me by tomorrow, since I want to take the kids to the pool.

ETA: I just noticed this ended up posting after midnight, so all that today stuff was really referring to Wednesday.

We didn't make it to the pool today after all.

It's not my back's fault either, it's feeling okay today.

No, the sky full of ominous looking rain clouds made me have a change of heart (even though it never did end up raining).

We did, however, take full advantage of the cooler weather, with a game of What time is it Mister Fox - Red/Yellow/Green Light, and horse back riding (twice).

S and I even worked on her reading outside today while H rode Junior. The horse, sister on said horse, goose, dog, other dog, and other goose were a bit too distracting for S, though.

C did really well with his riding when I ponied him for the second time today. He balanced a lot of the time without having to hold on with his hands; he just used his weight and his legs. We joked that now he really knew what it felt like to ride a fat horse (his Sensei always tells the kids to imagine riding a fat horse to get their leg position right for the horse stance).