The party was at 3pm so I went down to the barn around 1 to start trying to load him up. He has never been a good loader and hadn't been loaded at all in over a year so I was prepaired for it to take an hour or so, but it only took 30 minutes of a little advance-and-retreat for him to finally get in and stay there. So I hauled him the 3 or 4 miles down the road to my Nephew's and unloaded and saddled up and took him for a warm-up ride over to the other side of the farm, just to shake the cobwebs out since he hadn't been ridden since the last birthday party I took him to a couple of years ago. It was thundering when I headed out, and as luck would have it, the bottom fell out just as I got to the far side, so we both got soaked before we got back. At that point I figured the pony rides were history so I left him tied to the trailer with my slicker over the saddle and went to help move all the outdoor tables and stuff onto the front porch. It was interesting there for a while with a whole class of pre-shcoolers in the house, but it finally quit after about an hour, just long enough for everybody to eat, so the pony rides and the hay ride were back on the agenda. The kids really seemed to enjoy it and I guess I did too. Tennessee was the perfect gentleman that he always is, walking slowly, being gentle, letting the kids pet him and posing for pictures. We even followed along behind the tractor and hay wagon when the hay ride headed out. I guess his years as a parade horse were worth something after all. He's a good ol' hoss!