Horse Show and Family Fun

This past weekend was everything good about summer all wrapped up into two days. Saturday was the annual horse show at Exceptional Equestrians, where Teddy attends hippotherapy. Since it was our first time participating, we had no idea what to expect and were pleasantly surprised by what a nice event it was.

Teddy thinks it's super fun to be in the back of a SWAT vehicle.

Teddy was fascinated by the SWAT vehicle that was there (because of the local police department's partnership with the barn for its officers who patrol on horseback). I'm pretty sure he's the first person who's ever licked that SWAT vehicle. And one officer now has Teddy drool on his helmet strap, but Teddy thought he was cool wearing the big helmet.

This was how happy Teddy was to show off his skills. (Or just ride his horse.)

My mother, aunts, cousin and her child came over for the day, so AJ had a friend to play all the little games. They both walked away with armfuls of loot, plus balloon animals. Dave's folks came as well, and they thoroughly explored the SWAT vehicle as Teddy kept leading them there while the older children played games.

Teddy's trademark smile.

Teddy rode for about 15 minutes with 3 other riders. He loves watching other people and smiles when he sees them, so he had a huge grin on his face most of the time. He did an awesome job telling his horse to start walking by patting her. At the end, each of the riders was presented with a trophy, which Teddy thought was pretty darn awesome. (And Teddy has a cool shirt from the event that he needs to grow a bit to fit.)

Hey look! They gave me this shiny thing!

We stayed for AJ to ride during the break, and he thought it was pretty neat to ride a horse. Then we ate lunch there, supporting the barn while enjoying burgers and brats.

AJ enjoyed riding his horse. It was neat for him to get a chance to ride.

After the horse show, we went to Bay Beach with my family. Bay Beach is a small amusement park in Green Bay with rides ranging from a quarter to a whopping dollar (for the roller coaster). For $20 of tickets, we had a couple hours of fun with every adult enjoying at least one ride. Trust me, the kids enjoyed all the rides. Teddy still loves the carousel, but he thought he was pretty darn cool riding in a little car ride by himself. (There were a few rides we felt comfortable having Teddy ride alone because they had seatbelts to contain him and were pretty low key. Let's just say that when Dave put Teddy on the swing ride, I headed the opposite direction for the bigger swings to avoid witnessing that. It turned out fine, though.) I thought it was pretty darn cool that Teddy could walk up some of the 3 flights of stairs for the giant slides ... last year I had to carry him the entire way up!

It was an absolutely perfect day spent with family making memories!