Old Mcdonald had a ranch...

This weekend we took a trip up to visit Mema and Papa at their horse ranch in Skull Valley, AZ (nice name huh!) The kids had a blast! For some reason Grace has been nervous around animals so she took awhile to warm up to the idea of visiting a ranch. Mema: "Grace, what animal do you want to go see?" Grace: "Chickens" Papa: "We don't have any chickens" Grace: "But, this is McDonalds farm" Papa: "Actually, its a ranch" Grace: "A ranch? hmmmmm". So we decided to offer her the very cool option of riding her own kid-sized, motor-powered "gator" (like a tractor). She told Mema she would rather help her scoop dog poop (see pic)




The Old McDonald theme continued...for some reason, everytime Papa entered the room, Noah would sing "EIEIOOOOOO"...that kid cracks me up!



Grace finally warmed up to the gator, which she used to chase down whoever was closest to her (thanks papa for encouraging that!). Noah spent his time dodging Grace's driving! Most of the time she drove she would sit back and put both of her arms on the seat behind her, totally relaxed, and then put her foot on the pedal as if someone else was chauffeuring her around. We would have to dive out of the way, or run after her and pull the gator out of the way of trees, rocks, animals, Noah, etc. And to think I was worried about missing my gym time!






Noah played on a pedal tractor, although he really preferred to ride in the wagon attached to the back. His legs were not quite long enough for the pedals, so papa roped the tractor and pulled him around.




Grace's best (and only) animal friend on the farm was Scrappy Cat. Scrappy normally does not let anyone near her, but she and Grace bonded from the get-go and spent most of the day "hunting" mice together. Grace: "we will have to dig veeeeery far Scrappy!"



Steve and I got some much needed rest time (I even took a nap!) and enjoyed being out of the heat for the weekend. I can't believe it's already 95 here in Tempe! blech!
Here's a slide show of all the pics I took over the weekend (not one of me! I am going to work on that- I may take Shannon's 52 week challenge, a pic of me and the kids together a week...we'll see)