Our rodeo experience

Actually, I guess it should be titled our carnival and livestock show experience because we didn't actually attend the rodeo. We were offered two free tickets to Clay Walker that night while walking around by someone that said they had gotten them from free. We just pointed to the kids, though, and they were like yeah, we're in the same boat with the kiddos at home. My children wouldn't last 15 minutes at the actual rodeo. We did however want to try out the carnival and I had heard (and saw on Ana's blog where they had a fun time) that there were pony rides and a petting zoo. So we headed out to the rodeo on Friday afternoon thinking that would be better than attempting it on the weekend with all of the people. My hubby is not big on crowds and lines as it is. I either forgot since it has been a few years how big that entire event has gotten or else it is 10x bigger than it used to be! We parked and rode a tram over to the entrance but after that it was a lot of walking! And it supposedly hit 90 degrees in Houston that afternoon so it was pretty hot for all of us not used to the heat yet (if you ever get used to it!).

So we walked and walked looking for a toddler appropriate carnival ride (we had actually missed them at the very beginning so went to the entire other side of the carnival). We went ahead and bought tickets even though I hadn't thought to look at how many tickets the rides took. So we bought 10 tickets for $5 thinking that would be good for at least 2 rides. Nope. We got in line for the ride you'll see the pictures of and it was 5 tickets per person and we only had ten tickets! Luckily a nice lady just gave us 5 of her tickets because she said she had plenty to spare.

The girls were excited about riding the little ride but after it started they were scared to death! Shelby grabbed onto me and kind of whimpered the whole time and Autumn grabbed my leg and wouldn't let go. So that did it for the rides!

We made our way inside to the children's section and the lines were way too long for Autumn and Shelby to wait in. So we just walked around and looked at cows. Overall, we probably won't go back to the carnival and livestock show unless we are going to see a show or maybe when the kids are quite a bit older. Poor Autumn, after being so scared on the ride, she then fell down and scraped her knee a little. She said "Mom, I'm having a bad day at the rodeo" and she told me just this morning that she'd had "a bad day at the rodeo."

Here are the few pics we took...

Before the ride had started...

Just getting started, everyone still having a good time!

Still good, we're barely moving...

It started getting scary for them when it lifted up and turned in circles. You can't really tell from the picture, though, and I think this was right before they both clung onto me!

Autumn in front of the cow butt's! I wish I could have caught it on the camera but right before this picture she was about to pet the cow's behind and pull it's tail. No fear sometimes! Luckily I stopped her in the nick of time!