"It's the dust and the mud...

We frequently go to the National Western Stock show as a family outing as seen here and here. But this year was a little different. Isabel wanted to see the Rodeo so we said that could be part of a present for her birthday. We were planning on going down to the NWSS Friday after school, hanging out for a while looking at stuff and then Chance would take Izzy and her friend Kathryn to the Rodeo and Josie, Tilly and I would head home. Well...Chance got stuck in Durango (huge snow storm) so I asked our friends Karen and David to watch Josie and Tilly while I took Izzy and her friend. It worked out great. We had a few hours to walk around the grounds, look at animals, feed a longhorn, eat some good greasy food before we headed over to the rodeo arena. A friend of mine who works in the ticket office got us the tickets, we were in the second row behind the chutes. For those of you not familiar with a rodeo (probably many of you) that is where the broncs, bulls, and other animals get released to go do their thing. It was so fun. And, Chance finally made it out of Durango. He got to the arena about 30-45 minutes after it started, bought the cheapest ticket he could and came and sat with us since there were extra seats in our area. Izzy had a blast and claimed it was her best birthday ever! Man, we gotta get that girl on a ranch somewhere.

This is a Percheron, there were a bunch of them and they were all HUGE!

Check out the funnel cake!

This is a chute. See how close to the action we were? It was pretty cool.

This guy wasn't so lucky. But he got up and walked away, which is always a plus.

...and they call the thing Rodeo" Garth Brooks