West Texas Fair and Rodeo

Yippee-Ki-Ay! It's that time of year - time for animals, rides, greasy food and the exciting rodeo! Every September the West Texas Fair and Rodeo comes to town and brings its many attractions with it. We always start out with the parade on Saturday morning downtown. This year, Aunt Cherisse, Hannah, and Kyla joined us for the fun-filled time of watching bands, floats, and many, many horses parade down the streets of downtown Abilene. The kids always enjoy it and this year found a new entertainment as well - catching crickets. Troy and Trent joined some boys who were chasing the things and managed to catch a few. Hannah pointed some out but allowed the boys to do the dirty work. We didn't quite make it through the whole parade, but did see what we wanted to. (The AHS band, Angie's girls, and the BCHE float) Our home school group entered a float this year and won 1st place in its division. Maybe next year the kids will ride on it.

On Monday morning we went with our friends the Parkers to the fair to see the petting zoo and some of the art entries. The petting zoo was a big hit as always. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of this since it was a rainy day and I didn't want to deal with the camera in the rain. We did have fun, though, having a picnic lunch in the covered seating area while watching it downpour. Back to the normal type of West Texas rain! Trent and I got soaked since we had to venture back to the car to get our lunches. Wouldn't you know - there was a break in the rain when we headed out there, but as soon as we had the lunch bag and were heading back the sky let loose! We were drenched, but did have fun in some ankle-deep puddles. :)

Thursday night we all went to "cantastic night." For the price of 6 coca-cola cans, you get a ticket to the fair. That's a pretty good deal for us! We just raid BikeTown's "recycling bin" and into the fair we go. We dined on always yummy fair food, rode some rides (the Ferris Wheel was a big hit), and went to the rodeo. The kids loved it! We made it all the way to the end and got to watch some real, live bull riding. The kids liked the steer wrestling, the bucking broncos, the calf scramble, the barrel racing, pretty much everything, but the bull riding took the cake. I'm glad they made it to the end so they could watch it!

The MacDonald clan at the rodeo!

We had some very tired kiddoes on Friday morning, but it was worth it and I know we'll do it all over again next year.