Free Friday Family Fun

This past Friday night we went to the fairgrounds to watch my hubby's co-worker barrel race with her horse. It was free, so we figured we should check it out. We were supposed to be there at 5:00. So, we hustled through a few errands and met my hubby and were there at 4:45. (One thing about our move, we are now early for almost everything. Before we were always a few minutes late!) Anyways, they were doing team roping when we got there so we settled in to watch for a few minutes before the barrel racing started. After all, we were early! Well, apparently they were running a bit over schedule and we kept watching and watching and watching....


The lady we came to watch came by with her horse, Flash, and gave each of the girls a good long ride with her while she was warming up her horse. They were both thrilled, especially Leia, who is almost 8 and thoroughly in love with horses. She thinks we should have one, since we actually do have room on our lot and it is zoned for horses. She is working on her daddy on that one. We will see if she does better at that than I did. I was sure we had room in our backyard for a horse when I was a kid. (We lived in town, and our yard was barely big enough for a big dog, but that didn't make any difference to me. I still remember asking my dad for one!) I didn't have my camera with me, so unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of them getting their rides.



Time seemed to be dragging on. Finally, at 7:00 the team ropers were done, but first, they had to take a tractor around and around the arena to rake the dirt, and a water truck came out to water the dirt down. Then the barrel racing was about to begin. The announcer said there would be 49 exhibition runs before the "real racing" started. We were thinking this would actually go fairly fast because the horses are running, after all. And I was reminding myself that this was FREE!! But, apparently, exhibitions are very different. These horses were trotting, and one little girl actually walked her horse through the entire pattern! Fortunately, Leia was enthralled with all of it, but the boys were getting fidgety, baby was getting crabby, and Padme was ready for bed. Along the way they stopped several times to bring the tractor out and rake the arena again. When the real deal finally started, we were excited to get on with it! SO, then they announced that they would be raking the arena after every 5 riders! Ugh..... We couldn't believe it! Somewhere along the line we got a bit silly and we began clapping for the tractor. We joked about his time, and if we should get out there and help him along. It made a very long night more fun. And somehow it didn't seem so long anymore.


Flash and rider finally went, they knocked over a barrel, so no time! We couldn't believe it! All this time and NO TIME! It was 9:15, baby was about out for the night, and it was getting cold and spitting rain, so we packed up and headed for home. We found out later that it went for another 2 hours.


So, all in all, a fun night, FREE entertainment, and Leia got her fill of looking at horses. Next time, we will leave the boys at home, though.