Adventures in Kalea Sitting: Horse Back Riding

Lazy ranch cat at my feet. 

My niece is awesome. She is 7 years old. Every so often I am able to spend some good quality time with her and I love it. Right now my mom has been taking her to horseback riding lessons and I was recently able to tag along. It was such a cool experience being able to see her do this thing that she loves to do. As we drove through the more country/rural area of our hometown, I started to feel at one with nature. It was a feeling that I don't really have time to embrace all too often. We pulled into the horse place (what do you call it? Ranch? Establishment...I dunno) where it was all beautiful land and open skies.  A cute little house greeted us along with several fenced in areas with horses hanging out, a few lazy ranch cats, and Kalea's instructor, Shadow. 

Kalea jumped out of the car and headed over to the stables as if she just owned that place. I watched with pride as my little niece helped get the horse out of the stall, checked it's hooves and prepped the horse for the ride. She is probably about 1/10th the size of the horse, which is really cute to watch as she hoped up on the back of this beautiful animal. I completely took in the experience: watching Kalea go around and around, lifting up her arms to practice balancing, learning how to stop and turn the horse, taking instruction from her trainer and acting like such a big girl! I was such a proud auntie. 

Kalea brushing Misty before the big ride.

On the ride home after the whole experience I couldn't help but daydream about living on a ranch and having no other responsibilities other than caring for horses and riding around open pastures. I was wishing that that could be my life. Living around peace and nature; the thought of it was so soothing. I could understand why there are people out there that give up city life and the hustle and bustle to just move out to the country for quiet and serenity. 

Kalea turning Misty to the right. 

I am so thankful that I was able to share this experience with my mom and niece. Now I have a little happy place that I can go to when life starts to get chaotic. I can only hope that I can tag along some day soon.