Horses and horse play

Next stop: Danada Equestrian Center and Forest Preserve in Naperville. It's where Steve and I got married ten years ago (!!) this October. Acres and acres of beautifully maintained barns, pastures and woods provided the backdrop for lots of picture taking.

Here, the kids spy something interesting in the storm drain...

...a little croaker had found some water in all the dryness.

Then, they sneak up to investigate a "coyote," learning after much tiptoeing and hushed commentary that it was a fake, put there to scare off other critters. But it almost worked on my two!

This trip is all about stopping to smell the flowers.

Then yay! Our friends the Schultzs joined us for a hay ride. Tommy and Ben are just 2 weeks apart. The question posed before snapping this shot: "Who's older?"

The kids stopped to see how they measured up.

And Sid made a new friend.

All that activity made us hungry, so we headed to Johnny Rockets for an easy dinner and some fooling around. Sami is an avid horse lover, too, and she and Sid quickly bonded over horse talk. There were belated birthday gifts for Sid once again. The girl has it good!

And these two goofballs just never stop yukking it up. (If there were a sound byte to add here, it would be a cacaphony of fairly accurately immitated bodily function noises.) And, we're off!