The Best Junior Rodeo We've Ever Attended

Warning: This post contains too many videos.  But once I started...

As soon as we moved into the house we received a circular advertising our new city's summer festival.   There were several fun activities listed but one I knew we just couldn't pass up: The Junior Rodeo.  The main reason?  Mutton Bustin'.  (For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of watching this event some have referred to as "Redneck Child Abuse," it is simply the entertaining spectacle of children holding on to a sheep as it runs through a rodeo arena.  I'd say the odds of a participant getting hurt are about the same as the odds of getting hurt while riding a bike - perhaps even less.)  My kids have been wanting to do this for a while, and Jack was devastated that he was too old to try it out.  I was literally giddy at the thought of Eliza and Luke participating.

J & E walking to the meeting spot.

They both did a great job!
Want to see?!?!
(I apologize for the random slow-motion portions of these videos!)

She earned those crayons!

In addition to Mutton Bustin', the Junior Rodeo included other fun events.  There were Candy Scrambles for various age groups.  This was when a large tarp was spread out in the arena and a truck dumped a bunch of wood shavings on the tarp, then another truck drove up and a small army of volunteers emptied large bags of candy into the shavings.  Age groups lined up with brown paper bags and ran to the wood shavings when prompted.  When that group's time was up, the candy was replenished and an older group was released.  All of our younger kids were really excited about this, but Cat needed convincing.  In the end, she was glad to have her own bag of candy.  The final scramble was just for adults and included a bunch of Dollar coins.  Ben and I weren't going to join... but then we did.  We didn't find any Dollars but it was still fun.

If you're still having trouble picturing this, here's actual footage of Cat and Jack Candy Scrambling:

And the next fun event for the kids was the Ribbon Chase, where a bunch of sheep are gathered on one end of the arena, with a few of the sheep having a ribbon on their necks.  Kids are supposed to try to get the ribbons and turn them in for a small prize.  Once again, our kids came up empty-handed.  But I'm really glad they tried.   It's not often you have an excuse to chase a sheep.

Jack's consolation for not being able to Bust any Mutton was the Chicken Chase, the last event of the evening.  He was really hoping to catch a chicken and bring it home.  And he was really sad that he wasn't successful.  I wasn't sad about going home chickenless, though we did have fun looking up chicken names in case we ever do own a chicken.  One of our favorites was Atilla the Hen.

I think we might have to attend again next year.