Mom, don't read this at work.

Over the weekend we headed to the "Valley" to visit my Aunt's and Cousin's and Grandma. First we went to Yakima where we visited my Aunt Dianne. This is Dietrich playing with my cousin's son Rory. Rory is the youngest in his family and has never had to learn what it's like to have a little sibling taking everything you have, copying every move you make, and playing with everything you try to play with. Rory did a pretty good job dealing with the nearly two year old all evening.

Aunt Dianne has my horse Brandy. She was one of the first horses my Dad bought when we moved to Ione onto property where we could have horses. I was 7 when we moved. My Granddad had died and I remember my Dad asking me "do you want to have a horse?" And what 7 year old girl wouldn't answer with a huge "HELL YES!" Well, we had to move to Ione...whatever show me the horse. And Brandy was that horse.
I started showing Brandy around the 5th grade, and continued to show her through junior high. We even made it to the State Fair in Puyallup. She was a great friend. I had to ride her twice a day and work my little butt off to get her to do what I wanted her to do, but she taught me a lot. She was never a "push button" horse, you had to know what you were doing to get her to cooperate.
I posted these pictures on facebook and a bunch of women I know posted "she looks great," "Oh Brandy, she's still around!" "Where does she live now?" And I realized that all of these women fell in love with horses after they learned to ride on Brandy. My Dad LOVED to make a little girl fall in love with a horse.
At first Dietrich didn't want to sit on her but I'm so glad he finally agreed! If his Grandpa Allan were here he would have been on a horse a hundred times by now. But after I had Dietrich I became so afraid, my mom gave away the last of the horses to an awesome Equine Therapy program. I always believed that horses would ALWAYS be a part of my life, that I would never ever not have a horse. But here I am, horseless, it's amazing what happens in life and how what we thought would always be can change so quickly. Horses used to be the center of my life, I would get up at 6:00 in the morning all summer long to ride Brandy before I went to babysit, and then I would ride her again in the evening. We would come down from camping so that I could ride, and then go back up. It was so important to me, so important to my parents that I did what I wanted to do (and was fairly good at). It's hard for me to imagine my children growing up without horses because it was such a huge part of my growing up. But it also scares me to think of them on horses because even the really good ones are so unpredictable.

Bryce tells me all the time that we will have horses someday, that we will move onto property and he will make sure that it is part of my life again. And I want that, but it also makes me so sad, because the person that I shared my horse passion with is no longer here to share it with me. I wanted to ride from Mexico to Canada with him after he retired. But we never got too.

I want to take Bryce to Salmo Basin and Salmo Lookout, some of our favorite trail rides, but that may never happen either. It sucks how something you love so much can die right along with someone you love so much.

Brandy is the only horse from the "original" horses that is still around and she is the only horse of ours that family still has. I'm so thankful that she has a nice home where we can come and visit her. She is such a good old girl, and she doesn't scare me one bit.
After our horse visit me went to Sunnyside to see my Aunt Deena and my Grandma Bernice. We also got to see my cousin's and their children, Dietrich and Grant had fun playing together. They even share a very special middle name, Allan.

We spent the day there looking at really old family albums, especially looking for baby name ideas. It was fun to have Grandma tell me about the people in the albums and have a better understanding of who everybody is. And I think we got a few good ideas for a baby name :)
It is so wonderful to get to visit Dad's family, but it makes me sad too, because I know how much we all miss him. He was everybody's favorite, especially mine.