They Call The Thing Rodeo....

Rodeo's make me cry. I love them, they are just so.... American. So I was just as excited as the kids (yes they were so excited they wore their cowboy boots to breakfast). It's not like a grew up a cowgirl, although we lived in St. George during the Gulf War and during that time I did have a dream of becoming a barrel racer...My Grandpa is a rancher, so I did get the opportunity to ride horses growing up, and lucky for me my Grandpa likes rodeos too (he still ropes in them occasionally) and he buys the whole family tickets to the Dixie Round Up every year.
The rodeo didn't start until 8pm so there was a long day of practicing being a cowboy, and some "educational" videos showing rodeo clips on you tube. From those videos Josh learned how to "rope", and attempted to teach Anna...

And walk like a cowboy... he is very observant, he adopted this stance with absolutely no coaching, and informed me that this is how cowboys stand,
This picture just makes me smile. When Anna can't find an appropriate bag, she carries her tank tops around on her shoulder like purses...
The opening gets me every time. The first honored the fire fighters, then all the soldiers in St. George. Standing ovation for both - love it - definite tear - i hope that it would be the same in L.A.. They even rolled a real tank out and fired a blank and an Apache helicopter flew over. Definitely Josh's favorite part.
Also loved the cute kids holding the flags.

Josh just kind of sat and took it all in. Anna was so excited she couldn't stop talking. She would yell for the horses to come out and clap. Saying she LOVED it would be an understatement.

Family shot: Ignore my shiny face, double chin, and sad sad bangs, someday I will earn how to be photogenic....

Thanks Grandpa!

PS I just copied this from Allison's blog - I look much better.. and Justin has the double chin - hee hee