Early Christmas Surprise

Alternate title: a little girl's dream come true!

Tuesday, this week, Joey called me at work around 3:30 pm to let me know he had just gotten off of work and was going to the city about 25 minutes away (and by city I mean it has a Wal-Mart and a Farm-King) to do some Christmas shopping. I was a little confused/nervous because:

1. It is November (not even Thanksgiving yet!)

2. Joey hates to shop

3. I hadn't even made a Christmas list

4. He said he wasn't going to Wal-Mart so I was pretty sure that my present was coming from Farm-King

5. He bought my birthday present at the hardware store

After work, I went to go vote and then went to bible study and forgot all about Joey's shopping trip. The next day, Wednesday, Joey said he couldn't take it any longer and really wanted to give me my gift. Since he was so excited about it I decided I wouldn't mind opening my first Christmas gift of the holiday season. All of this was agreed about half-way through cooking dinner. I told him I would finish making dinner and then I would open it. He said that it wasn't at our house, that we had to go to it. At this point, I was pretty sure I was getting some kind of farm machinery.

So we put a lid on supper, locked the dogs out of the kitchen so they didn't pull a Bumpus-hounds (Christmas Story, anyone? The Bumpus hounds break in and eat the Christmas turkey and the family has to go to a Chinese restaurant), and got ready to go see my questionable mystery Christmas present. Joey actually made me wear a blind-fold so I wouldn't know where we were going. I could feel where we were driving for about the first two turns and then I got completely turned around and a little carsick. So basically if I was ever in a blind-folded hostage situation I would not be able to figure out which direction I was taken by counting turns. After Joey drove around in circles for a while to throw me off and got a chuckle about imagining another car pulling alongside us and wondering why the passenger was wearing a bandanna over her face, we pulled onto gravel and stopped.

Joey left the car running and then led me out (was he was going to get back in the car and leave me in the middle of nowhere to walk home?) and let me take my blindfold off.

I was standing in our friends' barn.

And there was a pony!

Joey got me a pony! Even though I had never asked for one, he must have known deep-down that despite all the riding lessons I took as a girl and all the My Little Ponys I collected over the years, there was still I pony-sized hole in my heart.

When I was younger I used to ask Santa for a pony. My dad insisted that Santa did not bring live animals (what about all the puppies with red bows under the tree on TV, dad?!)

I know it's kind of silly. I'm pretty sure I am too big to ride her, but she is very cute and I can brush her and braid her mane and feed her carrots and say that I own a pony. And that's what all girls really want, deep down.

And she didn't come from Farm-King. Joey didn't even go to the city he said he was going to. And the neighbor's trailer had a flat tire so he actually put her in the back of his pick-up with the topper on.

The pictures are pretty bad since they were taken at nighttime. In a barn.