The Happiest Place on Earth

Last weekend we spent an afternoon at Snow Basin, otherwise known as the happiest place on Earth.

Disney has it all wrong.

I mean really, look  at this place! What could possibly be better?

This little cowboy absolutely breaks my heart with the cuteness.

Doesn't he look like he could step into a Norman Rockwell painting? 

Just classic.

This is what happens to cowboys when the horses have been riding all day and are tired and just don't want to go anymore.

They nose up to the trailer, practically begging the saddle to be taken off.

This one may as well have been a mule, he was not going to budge.

But the little man on back desperately wanted one last ride around the lot.

And then there's the cowgirl, she can get that horse to do anything she wants it to, she's never happier than when she's on the back of that horse.

A ride on the mountain trial is never complete without a lope or two around the parking lot.

Tired horse or not.

I love that my children are being raised in the mountains. 

We get out there as much as we can this time of year.

It is usually at least 10 degrees cooler up there.

We can leave the scorching heat for a few hours and enjoy their magic.

I sometimes wish I could bottle these days. 

The cool grass under our bare feet and rolling up pant legs to feel the cool rush of the brook on our bare toes on hot Summer afternoons.

I feel like I may need these happy memories one day.

I will need the pig tails and the too big cowboy hats and the blazing Summer sun telling me that life is good.

I will need friends playing in the mountains with laughter ringing in the trees.

I will need muddy feet and watermelon juice running down little chins.

I will need BFFs and plaid shirts.

I will need skipping stones and babies sleeping in the car on the way home.
I will need the towering aspens with their leaves that twinkle in the breeze.
I will need the lunches packed up and hiked to a picnic table deep in the trees, away from all the care and worries of this thing called life.

Little M&M and her BFF


 I just keep thinking that my kids only have one shot at childhood, and this is it.
I want them to have the happiest memories possible.
Happy enough to get them through whatever life throws at them when they are older.
I can not tell what may or may not happen in the years to come, but for right here and right now, this is childhood, and I bask in the richness of it all!