St Maries Weekend!

We took the horses to St Maries over the weekend - about 80 miles south of my house where my husband's brother lives in the mountains. We took the horses down on Friday. Saturday morning we got up to go ride and Haley wanted to go. Haley is 13 and in the past has been terrified of the horses but there was another 13 year old girl there and she was going. I could not believe how well Haley did - not only was it her first trail ride - her first ride out of a pen of some kind. She was walking over logs (not by her choice if she said she didn't want to do something our lead person headed in that direction) crossed creeks (Autumn even jumped some of them) and she took it all in stride (for the most part :)). Willow learned how to cross water on this trip. The first thing going out of the ranch we were staying at is a creek - when our leader saw how Willow wouldn't go - we crossed the creek 7 more times before we got to the top of the hill. All in all a great ride about 3 1/2 hours.
The next day there were only 3 of us. Kylie went with and she did really well also. Autumn jumped a few creeks and Kylie stayed on like a pro. We didn't ride as long (it was a little warmer). Unfortunately Monday morning we did not get to go on a ride. I was feeling a little under the weather (although self induced) so we loaded the horses and headed home. It was great to get to go on some more rides and Willow is doing really well. Not sure why I was so chicken before. She does need some work on going out by herself but should be great.