Another Wonderful Staycation Day September 05, 2008

Someone coined the term staycation recently to recognize that more people are staying near home for vacation because of high gas prices.  We just wanted to stay home for my week off because it sounded nice to have a mellow, relaxed time where we woke up each day and said, "what do we want to do today?".  It's been great.  Today we had a bit of a wild west kind of day, without the gunplay.

We got up and decided to go out for breakfast and then head out to Antelope Island, which is just down the street, albeit 15 miles down the street.  Last time Noah went, he decided to make a hybrid out of the name of the island and the animals he saw.  Since then, he calls buffalo "buffalope."  It's super cute.  Well, there are hundreds of them on Antelope Island.  Like at Yellowstone, they tend to walk around like the behemoths they are, pretty much indifferent toward the presence of people.  One time we even had to pull forward or I swear the beast would have stuck his head through the window.  Here's a picture.

At one stop--a place called Buffalo Point--we ran into a group that we had chatted with earlier in the park.  They were the women's soccer team from Texas State.  When we saw them at Buffalo Point and they climbed out of their vans, Noah gleefully declared, "SOCCER FRIENDS!"  And again began the Noah ritual of charming women and girls.  I swear everywhere we go he's laying the charm on someone.  Well, once he got the desired reaction, he really started hamming it up, saying "buffalope" emphatically every time he spotted one.  Once they left for a walk up the trail, he was ours again and Laura got some fun pictures between squirms (his and hers--he wanted to walk down to the buffalo or bison or whatever they are).

On our way to another part of the island, and well on Noah's way to his nap, we spotted a male antelope and his harem.  It was fascinating to watch them.  There were a whole bunch of female antelope with him and he was obviously herding them.  When one or two would walk in a different direction, he'd head them off and they'd respond, just like he was a cowboy on a horse.

Speaking of cowboys and horses, our activity later in the day was to head down to meet Laura's sister, Megan, at the barn to ride her horse, Beyley.  Megan's had Beyley for a whole bunch of years now and has won many events showing Beyley, who's well-mannered with just a bit of spit-and-vinegar to keep things interesting.  Noah's been looking forward to riding Beyley for awhile now and has even commandeered one of my old fishing hats as his cowboy hat.  Here he is eagerly awaiting his second turn to ride.

He didn't just sit calmly waiting though, because he's two.  More on that later.  He took his first turn riding with Mommy.  Megan led them around the arena.

From the moment we got to the barn he was just itching (more on that later too) to ride.  Here's a fun pciture I took while Aunt Megan was scraping Beyley's hooves and saddling him up.

Between turns riding, Noah wandered around the barn and stables checking out the other horses.  He was having a ball and we mostly had fun chasing him around.

He saw lots of horses and managed to find a cat on a skanky old pillow in the stable offices.  Naturally, he needed to play with the cat.  Which required laying on skanky old pillow.  Two mangy old curs walking around the barn area also probably enjoy the comforts of skanky old pillow.  Oh, and Noah's allergic to dogs and cats.  And, seemingly, horses.  By the time his second turn on Beyley came around, the itching, eye rubbing, and sneezing were coming on strong.  We had dosed him up with Benadryl before we went because we know how this story ends.  Needless to say, it was time to go.  Here's Megan's payment.

We also brought a change of clothes just in case the horse got him puffy.  We wanted to go to dinner so we ran over to Grandma's to give Noah a bath.  By the end of the bath, he seemed to be getting a bit better and he loved dinner.  He was complaining less by then.  Now, though, it's off to the all-night Wee Care for an 11:10 p.m. appointment because he can't sleep, is wheezing, and wakes up every few minutes complaining, which isn't like him (well, not that kind of complaining anyway).  Still, it was a fun day and worth it.

Update:

1:18 a.m. now and we just got home from Wee Care.  Noah got a steroid shot (no Olympics for awhile), a pill, a breathing treatment that involved me holding him while he squirmed and screamed, "I'm dying" repeatedly, and a whole bunch of suckers.  Oh, and those things that they bang your knee with (why do they do that? Laura thinks it's just a parlor trick).  Off to bed.