Why I Oughta...

On a trip to Binny's to pick up some fancy beers for herself, Nat noticed a sign that said that the Budweiser Clydesdales were going to be appearing at Binny's in Oak Brook.  Well, we couldn't miss that, right?  I have never peep'd them in person before and it was pretty neat! They were scheduled to be there for a few hours, but the weather cut it short.  Fortunately, we were there for a while before they put them away. Talk about nostalgia and holidays and the feels all wrapped up in one nice, neat package. Amazing ambassadors for the brand.  Too bad it is a giant European conglomerate these days. But they're still bringing out the horses for Suburban rubes like us.  And guess what?  It worked.

In what seems like the past few months, the pace of adoption of Legos has increased rapidly in our house.  We went from having a tub of Duplos that the girls would occasionally build something with to full-on regular Lego sets in an instant.   You can see some of the Lego-related posts here on the blog. The Bird - who is younger - has mostly been spending her time with Lego Juniors.  They're a bit easier to build but she still gets to work with 'regular Legos' like her big sister and leave the Duplos to her brother the Beef. The Babe on the other hand has a total unquenchable thirst for all things Lego.  It started with a few Lego Elves sets.  Then she got a few Disney princess sets (including some for Christmas) and the Millennium Falcon (Squee!) and it just exploded.  (note:  she hasn't built the Falcon yet because she wants to 'wait until her new room is ready so her sister and brother don't wreck it'...)  She's built Ecto 1 and 2 from Ghost

John, a Percheron horse , gets two meals at the Tri-Circle-D Ranch at Fort Wilderness down in Orlando.  We wandered around the Fort one night waiting for Hoop De Doo to start and spent some in the stables checking on the facilities and seeing the horses.  Neat stuff and can't believe we had not done this before. He seems to live on Coastal Hay, which a quick Google search tells me that Coastal Hay isn't crazy expensive/exclusive stuff.  Just normal horse food .  Kinda expected more from Disney?  Maybe I'm wrong?  And Coastal Hay is fancy horse food?

I came across this wood rocking horse that was too cute to pass by at a garage sale recently in Elmhurst.  I took a photo of it and texted it to both Nat and her Mom - who is kinda *into* horse stuff.  Either way, I was going to buy this thing. Nat's mom raised her hand and this awfully cute red Wonder Horse has found a new home in Naperville for a whole generation of grandkids to ride on.  The price was too good to not put this into our van. In poking around on the web about what exactly this thing is, I came across this story about The Wonder Horse  and the history of the company who made/make it: Children of the 1950s remember the most popular horse from their childhood: the Wonder Horse. The all-wood painted horse was supported on a wooden frame by metal springs. The child rider could bounce up and down. The Wonder Horse was made by Wonder Products, now located in Bossier City, La. The company made its first horses in 1949. It continued making the same type until 195

This whole crate of horseshoes was five bucks.  I've never come across a set of shoes like this with the leather on them and the spikes attached.  But....I passed.