We went to our very last Active Duty dog and pony show yesterday. Honestly, as far as the Army's dog and pony shows go, it wasn't bad. It was a doozy, though. It was for the entire brigade. (OK, think of unit structure: Squad-Platoon-Company-Battalion-Brigade-Division. A brigade is like 1/4 of a Division. It's thousands and thousands of soldiers.) They had live bands, a free steak lunch provided by The Great American Beef Battalion (cattle ranchers who travel the world giving free steaks to troops), all kinds of giveaways, tons of stuff for the kids to do, and all kinds of other stuff. It was long, from 9 am to 3 pm, so almost a full duty day on a Saturday, but we hung out with some friends, and the time passed quickly. We ended up leaving an hour early, though, because honestly, with Thak only having 30 more days until he is on terminal leave, nobody really cares where he is anymore, and by that time, the kids were exhausted, and needed to rest because we had other plans for that night.
The minute Orren sat down in his carseat, he was out cold, but we ran around town and did just a few more things, but then we went home and got ready for our actual plans for yesterday, which had been in the works for some time! You see, world champion bull rider Tuff Hedeman is from El Paso, and he's now got this world class bull riding federation that he is in charge of, so you KNOW there's going to be a tour stop in El Paso. Uh, yeah, it was last night! You think we got tickets? You bet! World class rodeo comes to town, we're totally going. Of course, like all things like that, it started at 8 pm, at which point the kids would normally be in bed, but we took them anyway. It was awesome. They loved it. Unfortunately, traffic was insane getting there (you have to figure, all of West Texas, Southern New Mexico, and Northern Mexico is going to try to get there. It ALWAYS sells out fast. I preordered our tickets to be on the safe side.), and we were a little late getting in. We got there just in time see the one competitor from Florida (and of course a ton of others, too), though! He was from Williston, no less!! That's so close to where we are from. In fact, the shirt Thak was wearing, I bought him at a western store in Williston. Anyhow, the Floridian cowboy didn't win, but if he had, that was about the only thing that would have made it any cooler than it already was. It was definitely the best rodeo any of us had ever been to, and we will go again anytime they come back to El Paso, no question!
Here are Erin and Orren ready to go to the rodeo:
And in case you wondered, the ability to totally rock this look is, in fact, hereditary. Like father, like son!
You can't see here, but I was wearing boots, too!
And here we are, about 11 pm, getting home from the rodeo. He was all tuckered out after a big evening of bulls, and clapping and yelling, and he went right to bed and slept until about 9 am.
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