Emma's First Horseback Riding Lesson

For her birthday, my parents gave Emma a private horseback riding lesson. Emma has been SO EXCITED for this - counting down the days until Saturday, the day of the lesson. Before getting on her horse (Chocolate Chip) - her teacher taught her how to groom the horse. Alexa got to do most of this also - in fact, Alexa just got right in there with Emma - I don't know that she completely understood the lesson was supposed to be just for Emma. Martha, the teacher, was ok with it though.

Here's Emma picking out the dirt from Chip's hooves. She really took this part seriously - and had a blast.
Here they are learning how to tack up the horse, with saddle and reins. It's Emma's dream come true. She's been doing this with her pet horse at home for weeks!

Emma, riding ALL BY HERSELF in a huge indoor arena!

You can't tell from this picture, but Martha put Chip on a lunge line and then got him to trot. If you haven't ridden before, trotting is really bumpy, until you learn how to post! So Martha told Emma to hang on, and the child hung on for dear life! I was seriously scared Emma was going to fall off, but she really hung on!

In her lesson, Emma also learned the "jumping position" (ah, such memories from my horseback riding days...) and had to practice steering Chip through a series of cones. She was very serious throughout the lesson, but when it was done and we asked her if she had fun and if she wanted to do it again, she just kept nodding and nodding!

At the end, Martha let Alexa have a turn on Chip, with Emma leading him: