Johnson City, TX [Vacation Series]

About a month ago TJ went with my parents to go see a friend's daughter compete in the Texas State High School Championship Rodeo. TJ was given the opportunity to ride a horse a couple of times and LOVED it. So I suggested that we make a stop in Johnson City (where they live) so TJ could ride again. When he left the rodeo he came home telling me he wants to show me how to ride.

We pull up and both kids had fallen asleep. So it took TJ a bit to wake up. He rode a little by himself but then he wanted to ride with me. We had a great time. I rode on Pooh Belle (spelling?) and Tim and dad rode on Ziggy. Pooh Belle was a little tired and hot so after I rode him around a bit, they decided to lead him around instead of me guiding him.

We made a bunch of rounds around the area and we start heading back up around their church building and I look over and Tim's horse took off. Everyone starts yelling and Shelbi (our friends Daughter) starts running towards the gate to close it to the highway. Tim finally bailed off the horse once they got to a low tree area. Little scary watching it. Renee who was guiding us was afraid our horse would take off too so she was keeping a hold of us. After everything calmed down I told her she could go help and I could just stay here.

From what we could see Tim was a little scrapped up but didn't look to bad. He wasn't saying much so I didn't get the story from him until we got in the truck.

Well he was really hurting. If you haven't been on top of a horse, you really don't understand how high you are off the ground.

Here is a little bit of history on this horse. Before they got the horse a young woman won a bunch of barrel races in the pro rodeo with him so he is a quick responder and will run fast and quick.

Right before the horse took off one of the dogs started running and not sure what happened here. But either the horse wanted to run too, the dog cut the horse off and made him want to run, or by chance that Tim doesn't remember he moved his foot where the horse thought it was time to run. When the horse took off at some point Tim hit a branch and lost his hat and glasses and that's when he got the scrapes on his nose, chin and chest.

Right when Tim was getting on the horse they told him not to pull the reigns back past his belt buckle, so when the horse took off his first reaction was to pull back on the reigns (what we were all yelling for him to do) but he didn't want to pull back past his belt buckle. Now the horse was headed for the trees. The horse of course wasn't going to run into a tree but he was running where the branches were low so Tim bailed off the horse.

So scary to watch and couldn't even imagine what I would have done if it was TJ and I on the horse. Tim said it was glad he happened to him and not us. My knight!

 Trying not to smile

 Miss Anna's firs time on a horse

 checking out those horse legs

 Riding with Mommy

 Tim riding Ziggy

 TJ riding with Mommy

 All of us riding

 Anna and Shelbi

 All done riding and walking Pooh over to get him cooled off

 Fun cooling the horses off

 The scrape on his arm

 The scrape on his nose

 his chin

all the scrapes on his back

Can't wait till we can ride again! and Yes, Tim wants to ride Ziggy again so there can be redemption! He is pretty sore but he'll survive.