Salute To Our Troops

Yesterday Tara and I were able to attend the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. We had a really wonderful and exciting time! We were able to park in the Yellow Lot for only $5 and then we were able to walk 5 miles just to find the person who we needed to check in with and receive our tickets - the reason I know that it was 5 miles is because Tara and I are wearing pedometers right now to see how many steps/miles we take in a week. Let's just say, my boots were made for walking - thank goodness!!!

I guess I didn't realize that I didn't take any pictures of animals while at the Rodeo, so this horse statue behind Tara will have to do for my proof that we were actually at the Rodeo - ha! The grounds of the Rodeo are very nice (believe me, we covered all the grounds just to get to that woman!).

My baby, a soldier!

So, let's play a game. What is missing in this picture?? You can tell that Tara is in the picture and she is turned sideways - she has done this for a reason. Tara had washed her uniform and forgot to put her patches back on - well, let me tell you - 3 different people (soldiers) went out of their way to let Tara know this! In this picture, she is missing her flag on her right arm. This one guy came running after us, he was all, "you forgot your flag". Tara said, "yes, I know that". So, then he proceeded to ask her if she had another one on her and said some other things to her, I think he was going to get on to her; so then I just simply asked him, "Do you have another one that she can borrow?" That made him all flustered (I don't think he was expecting me to talk - see he was actually a higher rank than Tara), not sure if he was going to be polite or not, but he was and said, "no, mam". So, here I am thinking, why would you bring up that question to Tara about having another flag? Don't you think that if she did, she would have put it on? Obviously soldiers don't carry around extra flags because if they did, then you would have had a spare to give to Tara. Anyway, let's just say, when Tara and I are together, we sure have some interesting adventures!!!

We went to our seats and every time Tara got up, she borrowed a friend's flag so that she would no longer be harassed about not having one.

If you ever have the chance to ask Tara about this story, it is a good one - ask her to share her side of it! :)

After the all the calf roping, steer wrestling, bull riding and barrel racing where over, the Air Force had men repel from the ceiling with our beautiful flag in tow. It was truly a wonderful night and Texas, along with the Rodeo, sure do a wonderful job of making sure our troops know how much we appreciate them and all they do for this great country of ours! May God bless America!

Going to Auction

Albert is getting ready to move the trailer so we can take T-Bone to auction

Here is our T-Bone, he is a really good look bull and we found out that he weighed 760 pounds - what a big boy for only being 1 years old!

Here are my 2 favorite cowboys.

We had a busy Saturday, loaded up T-Bone about 11:00 and drove to Navasota to the auction house. We got a seat about 12:30 and T-Bone went up for sell at 3:00 - yes, a long time to wait and a lot of cattle to go through before his turn. Charley was a really good boy through the whole thing, loved looking at the cows, but fell asleep on Albert before T-Bone came out. He started out at .70 cents a pound and went for .90 - it was very exciting to watch people bid on him. In my head he is going to be on a ranch surrounded by cows - having the time of his life - if it is a different story and he is headed to the slaughter house - ah - don't want to know about it!

It was a very interesting project for Albert and I, having a bull calf, raising him for 8 months and then selling him. We might consider this venture again, but not until we can more grass for the cattle to graze - the price of hay - ouch!!! I must say, getting him into the trailer without any cattle equipment - we are now officially cattle ranchers!! :)