Strawberry Days Rodeo

Howdy ya'll....Welcome to the Pleasant Grove, Strawberry Days Rodeo.

I'm tired. Let me start off with that. But tired for the best reasons. This weekend was full...okay, Saturday was full, but that's basically the weekend anyway, right? So Bryan asked me to come out and help his frisbee team play in a tournament. You have to play with 2 girls on the field at a time, and they were only going to have 2 girls that they were for sure about. So I came. Admittedly a little reluctantly at first. I have no doubts about my skills---they aren't very good. At least not compared to an organized team who have been playing with one another all summer, but I wanted to help out. I was told I didn't do so bad, I was actually doing really well. I still don't know if I believe it, but at least I gave the other girls a break, which was my main job. I have to tell you though, 4 games, 9am-3pm, in sunshine---I was tired. I didn't think I was that out of shape, but apparently I am.

Bryan was a sweetheart and bought me my first pair of cleats. Too bad I didn't wear the right kind of socks the first time I wore them. Now my ankles look like I've been chained to a wall in shackles because the skin has been rubbed off. Eww. I had to bandage and tape them so that I wouldn't hurt them more for this tournament. And they seemed to come out okay.

We won two, lost two. Games that is. I'm happy to know that I made at least one of the point though. I'm finally, kinda, sorta, getting the hang of this frisbee thing. I'm sure I'll have lots more practice though if Bryan has anything to say about it. (And I'll probably do it.)

So after exhausting ourselves, we make it home in time to get ready to go the the Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days Rodeo. I wanted to go and I had promised Emily that we would go this year---I just didn't know that I would be running around all morning first, but I was determined to go, so we went.

Yes, yes, we got some sun that day.

The first event---Bareback Bucking Broncos

That means they're riding that horse without a saddle.
I was actually amazed at how many people COULDN'T stay on for the whole 8 seconds. I know that I couldn't, but I don't do this as a profession or even for fun like these people do. Some of them were in the top 15 in the world and they couldn't even make it. Must be some horse.

One of the cowboys---Look at those chaps.

Sorry it's so blurry. It's hard to capture them with my camera.

Calf Racing (or something like that) - they had to lasso the calf, tie it around the saddle horn, jump off the horse, run over and flip it on it's side, then hog tie it. One guy did it in 7.5 seconds. Make was pretty darn amazing. It makes me want to rethink what I can do with 7 seconds.

This was also Bucking Broncos, but this time with saddles. Those poor horses.

Sorry this one was so dark, the flash ruined the pictures even more. But this was a woman called Amanda with her show called "the One Arm Bandit"---don't ask me, I have no idea why. Basically she herded a pair of buffalo up a ramp on the side of her trailer. I wasn't that impressed, but then again, maybe it's really hard to herd buffalo. I wouldn't know.

Anyway, it was a long day, but lots of fun. They had Bull riding too, but it was just too dark to get a good picture. Still, I feel like a full-fledged Texan now that I've actually seen a rodeo. Plus I got strawberries and cream too. Yum.