Busy Week!

I asked the boys today what their favorite thing was that we've done together this last week. I gave them these choices:
Going to the pre-game football party complete with free BBQ, snow-cones and bouncy castles

Watching the Pendleton Bucks play in their first home football game (which they won)

Seeing the parade and getting gobs of candy

Going to see Rodney Atkins in concert (ok - that was just me, but it had my vote!)

Spending the night with Grandma and Grandpa in Hermiston

Playing coyote with all the PPD (Pendleton Police Department) kids at a BBQ

Attending Awanas (or Iguanas as Owen calls it)

Going to the Pendleton Round Up and watching us some rodeo

Visiting downtown and eating fun food, buying swords and going to the carnival

Spending the night with Granma and Pappa out in Pilot Rock

Attending 2 birthday parties

Hanging out with mom (I offered this one up but they just looked at me like I said something in Japenese)


They both agreed that it was a tie. The rodeo and the carnival blew all the other competition out of the water. They loved the rodeo for lots of reasons but it was mainly because of the animals and all the people. My boys are people watchers just like their momma.

This is as close as I want my boys to ever be to a bull. It was staring them down like it wanted them for dinner. It could have been because my boys were telling him what a good boy he was and how handsome his fur looked, but I doubt it. My boys are impressed with any form of livestock.


Hands-down favorite was the horses. Caleb loved them and even though Owen was a little scared of them, he still admired them as well.


After we looked at the animals it was time for a little rodeo. I don't have any pictures of that because, well, because my camera stinks and all the pictures are blurry. I do have pictures of Cowboy Tootsie Roll and Cowboy Peter Pan as they intently tried to figure out what was going on.

Here's Owen looking for the princesses. The Round-Up Court came to his Pre-School and they all oohed and aahed over him and gave him stickers and a poster with their pictures on it. My boy is in love. That picture is the first thing he whipped out of his backpack that day and he had it hung up on his bulletin board in 3 seconds flat. He kept asking me "When do we get to see those girls again!?" This had better not be a sign of things to come.

Caleb stayed tuned to the action no matter what he was doing. His eyes were watching those cowboys and cowgirls chase and rope the calves and steers. He loved it when the cowboys had to follow the steers into the holding pen to get their ropes back. I don't know why. It just cracked him up though.

Wednesday night, Mark and I took the boys downtown and did the eating out and vendor booth thing. We had a great time and then around 7:30 we got a wild hair and decided to let the boys go to the carnival. Now, historically Owen has been too short to ride the rides and after one year where he sat watching Caleb ride an airplane ride through the tears in his eyes, we decided we weren't doing any more until Owen could do them too. This was the year.

I have hardly seen the two of them so excited. They were like kids at the carnival for the first time. Wait - I guess that's what they were. And let me tell you, it was sooooo fun to watch them enjoy every little thing about it.

Here they are after their first ride:

Now this ride was towards the end. This ride is now on my list because I blame it completely for the vomit I had to clean up at 11:30 that evening. It started out good. The boys were still on a carnival high and here they are waving to Mark and I.

Then the ride started. And it kept going and going and going. Pretty soon, Owen wasn't waving anymore. Owen wasn't even really answering me when I asked him how he was doing. In fact, by the time the ride ended, Owen looked a little pale. Hmmm. No more rides for Owen that night and while we did let him bounce in the bouncy castle, he seemed fine once he was off that ride.

But like I said, I was cleaning up vomit at 11:30 that night so apparently he wasn't fine. Oh well, it was still worth it to see their faces after that first ride!