California Trip - Day 5

Saturday - May 19th, 2007

Since we'd hardly spent any time with our hosts during our stay, we had made arrangements to join them for a big family breakfast Saturday morning. My dad wouldn't be up and about until around noon, and we had some last minute shopping to do before heading out to the ranch as well, so we had a little time to spend with Uncle J. and Aunt A. Breakfast consisted mostly of pancakes and bacon, and it was delicious! PC was in such a hurry to inhale his bacon that he bit his tongue for the first time. It was sad, but also very funny to see his thought process as he tried to comprehend how the bacon managed to 'bite'. We had a small battle over his 'last bite of pancake' that in the end I'm not sure who won. PC managed NOT to eat the ONE piece that Sir chose as the last bite, but eventually ate ALL the rest of his chopped up pancake.

Once we'd finished breakfast, chatted with Uncle J. and Aunt A. and packed the diaperbag for our day at the ranch, we said goodbye and headed out. Our first stop was a ranch supply store to look at what was available for fly repellent medication. My mom had recommended that store and we hadn't managed to stop in to check earlier in the week. Not impressed with the selection, we decided to go back to the feed store we had been to the day before. But we were on the opposite side of town so we went ahead and did our gift shopping before grabbing some lunch and heading back to the feed store. We ate in the parking lot and while I cleaned the kids up Sir ran into the feed store and bought the repellent we had originally looked at. While we were there he picked up some leather conditioners and soaps for our boots so we could clean them properly when we got home. With one last stop at the grocery store to pick up a watermelon and some ice, we headed out to the ranch.

As we drove in the driveway, my sister Renée was driving out. Probably to work or to drop Cole off at his dad's house. We waved and continued on to the house. Both of my mom's sisters were already there. Sir and I had arranged to sell two of our horses to them and they had come with a trailer to haul the mares away. We unloaded the kids and the gift for my parents and went inside to visit a little. There was a family dinner planned for the day, but to Sir's and my surprise it was served at 2pm! We had actually eaten lunch in town since we didn't know how late supper would be and didn't want to be starving to death in between. As my brother, Liz and C gradually showed up, and the 'dinner' was put together, I tucked Dolly in for a nap. PC decided he was too awake and I didn't want to battle him on naps in a strange place. Lunch was a ham roast, mashed potatoes, corn and a bean salad. It was suggested that the watermelon that we brought be cut up for dessert or just a snack later, so other than the piece that I gave to PC, it wasn't served with the meal.

After lunch/dinner was cleaned up, my mom told us she wanted to vaccinate and de-worm the horses while so many people were around and then 'maybe some would go for a horse ride'. So, Liz, C and my brother set out to get the horses in. Amusingly enough, the horses ran past the house (away from the kids on foot and in a pickup) at least five times before finally being corralled. By the time they were finally in, it was getting close to 5pm. We caught each horse and gave it two intramuscular injection vaccinations and an oral de-worming paste before moving on to the next one. There were fourteen horses to work so it took a while before we were done. Once our horses were done, I helped my aunts halter and start to load the two horses they were buying from us while the rest of the horses were being medicated. Sir kept our little ones out of the way and where they could watch the excitement with so many horses around. Once the rest of the horses were done, my brother came over to help me load the second horse we were selling. She had never trailered and wasn't very excited about entering a strange metal box. I wasn't too pushy about it either because the last thing I wanted to do at five and half months pregnant was get squished between two frightened horses in a trailer. After much coaxing and a bit of persuasion, we got the second horse into the trailer before taking a break to catch our breaths.

We went back to the house for our break and everyone enjoyed some watermelon while we visited a bit more. It was already around 7pm and my aunts wanted to get going so I grabbed the camera and tried to get a few pictures of them before we said goodbye and they loaded the horse they had brought with them and left. Since we still had to pack and would be leaving the next day, we didn't stay very much longer either. I needed to give the kids baths and we wanted to wash some of the dust off the outside of the car before loading it up with our luggage and getting dust inside as well. We visited a little longer with my parents and finally got on our way for the cottage again just after 8pm. Once we got there, Sir took the car out to a carwash, picked up some ground beef that my mom told us was in the freezer at her office for us to take home, some ice for the cooler and grabbed a snack since we hadn't eaten anything other than watermelon since the dinner at 2. While he was gone, I bathed the kids, put them to bed and started the long job of repacking everything for our trip home before taking a shower. When Sir got back we composed our thank you card for our hosts and finally called it a night around 1am. We had hoped to get to bed earlier since we had a long day ahead of us, but overall we felt a bit more rested than we did before we started out on our California trip.