Yeehaw!

We went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Sunday afternoon with Robert, Debbie, Taylor and her friend. Robert is one of Chris' co-workers and his workout partner. He and Taylor also join Clara and Chris for their daddy/daughter breakfasts. Clara adores them.

Anyway, back to the rodeo. Unfortunately the forecast called for rain all day, but we decided to brave the weather anyway. It was pouring the whole drive down and when we got there but cleared up long enough to walk around the carnival for a few minutes. Clara got to ride her first carnival ride, the hot air balloons. It started raining right as the ride started, so then I was cold and wet.

We grabbed some lunch and the requisite funnel cake before heading into the exhibits. We headed straight for the cowboy hats because a girl's gotta look good for the rodeo.


She loved the petting zoo and spent a good 20 minutes in there with Daddy. Every time she spotted the piglet, she took off after it. She sat and poked a sleeping goat's eye for a couple of minutes trying to get him to open them and she decided that the llama needed a pink cowboy hat. It actually sat there with the hat on for a few seconds. The mama goat was fenced off and she had 3 babies only minutes earlier. She was still taking care of the afterbirth, which caused me to gag just a bit. The babies were sooo cute and they hadn't even nursed yet; they kept nudging her neck and legs trying to figure out where the grub was.

We headed over to the rodeo and enjoyed the prime seats we had at the very top of the stadium. My favorite parts were the calf scramble, chuck wagon races and mutton bustin'. I had never seen mutton bustin' and that was the cutest thing I've ever seen. Four and five year olds riding sheep. You don't get much more awesome than that. One sheep leaped in the air right out of the gate and the four year old boy still stayed on and I think he's the one that won in the end. I can so see Brody mutton bustin' before too long.

We left before the concert, because unbeknownst to us when we decided on a day to go, it was Tejano Day and we weren't real interested in staying for a tejano concert. They did the whole rodeo with two hosts, one spoke English, the other Spanish. I was surprised to hear the invocation led in Spanish, but not English. That was a bit annoying, but I guess it's our own fault for not checking on these things.

After the rodeo, the rain had cleared again, so everyone rode the bumper cars. Clara got to ride with Daddy and she couldn't stop laughing the entire time, directing Daddy as to who he should bump next. Then Taylor won at ski-ball and let Clara choose a prize. We decided our feet had had about enough at that point and called it a day.

It was so crowded, even with the rain. I can't even imagine how bad it would've been if the weather had been nice. Part of it may have been the tejano day thing. We were definitely the minority. The carnival was nice and deserted, but we had to wade through crowds everywhere else. Next year, we will try to go during the week. And not on tejano day.