Fun in the Sun

This weekend felt like a mini-vacation, which was AWESOME.

I woke up at about 7am on Saturday and went out to wash my embarrassingly filthy car. My car's so much cuter and shinier when it's clean! It had a thick dirty layer on it that didn't even budge when it rained, so I knew it was time. Ps- washing a car in the shade at 7am=FROSTBITE ON MY HANDS. Holy crap. Not my smartest move.

I was supposed to go to football practice that morning, but got too lazy and didn't feel like driving all the way over there. Especially since my favorite guys were either hurt or not there. I ended up lounging around, riding my beach cruiser to visit my mom at Starbucks, and just relaxing. Felt damn good!

I was supposed to be in Sacramento at 4 for a babysitting gig. All rad people are traveling babysitters, didn't you know? The people who I sit for every week were going to a wedding and had asked me if I would come up. They pay well and I had nothing else to do, so why not? After Google maps cockblocking my efforts to stop at Sonic, I showed up ready to wrangle the kid. I get there and the mom says "sooo....I've decided that you and the kid should come with us to the wedding." Me: ".....?". I wasn't exactly in wedding attire! Luckily, I had a cute printed tank top on (that matched the wedding perfectly, I might add) and a little jacket in my car. And flip flops. Her whole thing was that she was going to have to come back anyways because she couldn't breastfeed the baby in her dress. How that meant that the toddler and I had to come, I have no idea. We stayed at the wedding for about a half hour and left in the middle of the ceremony! Random. Since the kids are always asleep when I sit, this was about the second time I had ever been around them and there I am, in the front of the freakin crowd, trying to keep a 2 yr old from bolting onstage to be with his dad, who was one of the groomsman. Good times...And since I was holding the adorable redhead, the photographers kept taking pics of me. These poor people are going to have half of their wedding pics be of some random stranger in dirty jeans and flip flops.

The next morning I headed out fairly early to go to Flin's parents house to go horseback riding with her and theRhinoceros!!! I was beyond excited about this. I grew up riding, but it's been a loooooong time. The last few times I went it was with my cousin (third cousin? twice removed? I don't know. We're related somehow) on her not very well trained horses. To put it nicely. My grandpas horses were so well behaved and trained that we'd all been riding since we were about 2 years old. My cousin's were basically non responsive to any and all commands. Made for some good times aka near death experiences.

ANYWAYS. I pulled up to the house in my gleaming candy apple red kraut rocket, so stoked to be out there. I absolutely love being in the middle of nowhere, whether it's the mountains, the country, a beach, wherever. Love it. We hopped in the trucks and took off for the 3,000 acre ranch owned by family friends.

The weather could NOT have been more perfect. Seriously. It was warm, with a cool breeze, not a cloud in the sky of the horizon above the green hills, which were covered in little tiny yellow daisy-ish flowers and bright purple something-or-others.

Flin tried to take me to the hidden graveyard of the rescuers of the Donner Party. I guess after they rescued them, the whole crew got sick and died. It ain't right!! I had family in the Donner Party, so that was interesting. Naturally, we were on the wrong side of the fence and didn't actually get to go TO the graveyard. Nice, Flin, nice ;) While we were riding away, we heard what sounded like crying. What in the HELL?! Crying?? Near a graveyard in the middle of freakin nowhere?! Riiiiight as I'm about to flip out, Flin goes "Oh, I think it's just a goose". We went with that. Because holy creepiness.

Next up we tried to walk along a "road", next to a bunch of bushes and trees. My horse was NOT having it. She would turn 90 degrees to the left and stare into the bushes. Walk a couple steps, turn to the right. Back and forth. It was worse than her usual wandering from side to side, never going straight walk, which cracked me up and I likened to a certain type of driver found in the bay area (Nic'll get it...heh...). At one point she straight turned around and started walking back. Oook. Since they can hear and smell things that we can't, we went with it. Add to that that there is a mountain lion in the area and we were perfectly happy to let her have her way.

We wandered around some more hills and came across a bunch of cows. A couple started following us. We passed more. They followed us, too. Pretty soon we had a whole freakin herd behind us. They must have thought that I was dreamy. Or had food. One of them was clearly the class clown, charging a couple steps towards us and jumping all over the place. Until Flin put his ass in check, that is. Heh...

Since theRhinoceros was out shooting things, we headed off to try to track him down. No such luck, but wandering around was rad anyways. Flin's gimp ass (literally) was hurting, so we went back to base camp so that she and the boy could switch spots.

Let me say this. The rhythm that it takes to dance with Africans and be called an honorary Malawian by them because of it? I have it. The rhythm that it takes to make swinging kettlebells look smooth and melodic? I have it. The rhythm that it takes to not look like a ragdoll on top of a galloping horse? I've lost it. Cripes. I'll have to work on that one.

After a quick switch of horse and riding partner, the boy and I took off while Flin went to pick up lunch for us. We meandered around some more, saw a red tail hawk, chased some cows... we returned to cheeseburgers and tater tots. WIN. I think we rode for about 4 hrs...which means that I won't be walking straight for a good week or so. My ass. The insides of my knees (bruised). My abs. My arm from throwing a stick a thousand times for their rad dog, Bo. We kept trying to get him to jump off this little cliff into a pond, but he would try to skid to a halt right before it and would end up belly flopping half the time. Highly entertaining.

A freakin fantastic day. I invited myself back. They'll just have to deal.

On the way back, I stopped and saw my grandparents for a little bit! It's always fun to chat for a while and catch up with them. I even got to play beauty parlor with Nana for a few mins :)