Yesterday

Yesterday was intense.

I woke up early and drove to Evanston where I met up with Ryan's family. Cara was, of course, much-gushed-over by Grammy, Aunt Meghan, and Uncle Wes. It was great. The reason for this trip was, actually, Uncle Wes who has recently decided to get out of the horsing lifestyle. Consequently, he is selling all of his equipment and Susan wanted to get a head start on my birthday presents for the next 5 or 10 years. I did need to go up and see what equipment he has... I'm a little picky. :)

I was pleasantly surprised. He had some nice bridles, and buckets, and a couple of good lead ropes. He also had barrels, a mounting block, a therapy saddle, and a cart! How cool is that? I've only gotten to drive a couple of times, but I loved it. He started to gloss over his packing equipment, but glowed with excitement when I told him Ryan and I want to go on pack trips. He wants to see that I get pretty much everything I'll need for future trips, and he also wants to teach me how to tie both a pack on a horse and a bridle from a rope. How stinking cool is that?!?

He also let me ride one of his horses. I don't even remember what breed he is, but he's a good size, beautiful color and has calm eyes. This horse has been used for therapy and for mountain trips. He was so fun to ride. He was gaited, too, and I got to experience that for the first time. Wes said we fit together. I fell in love.

Eventually Cara and I had to leave the ranching atmosphere and go pick up "Daddy." We had an appointment to go house hunting again. We looked at a couple of houses and found one that is perfect for us. It's a manufactured home, and feels good for our little family. It's on a little over a quarter of an acre. It has a one-car garage and tons of parking in front. The front yard is gorgeous, with a little lawn and huge trees. The backyard is a perfect mess and would give us many many hours of work and chances to be creative. If I hadn't ridden a horse that day and been reminded of how much I love them and want to be outside with them, it's possible we would be making an offer on it right now. We may yet make an offer on it. However, we also looked at a horse property in our price range. The house was a complete mess, but it gave me hope. So did the fact that there was another horse property we were supposed to look at but that the realtor somehow missed in our list of homes to look at. Again, maybe the house is a dump. Then again, maybe it isn't.

While we were driving around, following the realtor to one of the houses, Ryan and I started commenting on how irritable Cara was being. It was unlike her. We had already fed her, so we tried giving her toys. They helped for awhile, but not very long. We attributed her crankiness to the fact that she'd been in the car so much that day and hadn't gotten to exercise or play. A few minutes later, we heard her coughing and choking in the back. I looked back and saw that she had thrown up all over herself. I panicked. I started unbuckling her from her carseat and said, "Ryan!" He was so good. All he said was, "Got it," and he pulled over as soon as he could while I got her out of her seat. I sat her in my lap, regardless of the fact that we were still moving. When she was more upright, she threw up 3 more times, all over the car. Ryan grabbed the wipes and cleaned us all up as much as possible. He also got out the outfit I had stuck in the diaper bag that morning. We changed Cara, and as soon as she was clean and spent a little snuggle time with Mommy, she felt better. She wheezed a few times, but then coughed and it was okay. Poor thing. We were all pretty shaken up. Each time we put Cara back in the carseat that night, she cried a little bit. We made sure we took it easy in the car and that everything was okay before we tried the windy road back up to Heber. We're not sure if it was carsickness, or bad food, or what. She's fine now, though. As I speak, she's sitting in her high chair smiling at me and playing with the straps that keep her in.

And our poor realtor... we know what we want. Or at least, we know the feeling we'll get when we find the right one. So far, we've come close half a dozen times but we haven't quite found the right fit. Last week we wanted a townhouse. This week we want a horse property. A part of me feels like a horse property is a pie-in-the-sky dream, but it's so tantalizingly close to being a real possiblity that I just can't give up on it completely.

Anyway, we'll keep looking. Wish us luck.