Yesterday started out as an ordinary day: breakfast, clean bedrooms, school. James had the 12-8:00pm shift at Mardel, so when he left at about 11:00 I loaded the kids up and drove over to Big Spring (60 miles) to go to an auction house to look for some chairs to go with their new school desks. Found just what we were looking for ($5 apiece), loaded them up, then drove around Big Spring a little bit just to see what's there. Nice little place, really. We ate at Wendy's--a rare treat (the one in Midland is gross and we never go there), then headed home.
We got here and I immediately set to work on their desks. The chairs were just slightly too tall for them to be used at the desks at their present height, so I extended the legs on the desks to make them just an inch or two taller. This, of course, means that each freshly painted desk leg now has an unpainted 1 or 2" ring! No matter. I need to paint the chairs now anyway, so I'll just slop some on the unfinished spots on the desks while I'm at it.
Tammy came over at about 5:00 and told me to load up the kids--we're going to the new arena! They've just completed construction on a gigantic arena here in Andrews to be used for rodeo events and all sorts of other things and yesterday was their opening day. The Cowboy Church (for real--there are tons of them out here) provided a chuckwagon dinner (bar-b-que brisket sandwhiches, cole slaw, beans and sweet tea) and they did team roping -- all for free. It was just local folks competing last night, but it was still a lot of fun to watch. There was even a kid--maybe 12 years old or so--that was the "hindermost" part of a team. ;-) (For those who know nothing about team roping: they release a calf and two cowboys on horses chase him down, the first cowboy ropes the calf's neck or around his horns, then the second cowboy ropes the calf's hind feet.) The kids were sooooooooo excited! Theyv'e never seen anything like this before and they thought it was terrific.
The only bad part about all of it is that Joe is still on his cowboy-stuff ban (it ends this next Wednesday) and so he wasn't able to dress up in all his duds like Katie and Sam did. It was really hard to follow through on that one and I almost cracked and let him wear them "just this one night," but James got me straightened out and we stuck to the rules. It was pretty hard on him (and me too!), but maybe it will get through to him all the more to watch his attitude an avoid future trouble because you just never know when you're going to be able to go see cowboys around here. Right??? ~sigh~ I sure hope so! Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the kids who were able to dress for the occasion...
We got here and I immediately set to work on their desks. The chairs were just slightly too tall for them to be used at the desks at their present height, so I extended the legs on the desks to make them just an inch or two taller. This, of course, means that each freshly painted desk leg now has an unpainted 1 or 2" ring! No matter. I need to paint the chairs now anyway, so I'll just slop some on the unfinished spots on the desks while I'm at it.
Tammy came over at about 5:00 and told me to load up the kids--we're going to the new arena! They've just completed construction on a gigantic arena here in Andrews to be used for rodeo events and all sorts of other things and yesterday was their opening day. The Cowboy Church (for real--there are tons of them out here) provided a chuckwagon dinner (bar-b-que brisket sandwhiches, cole slaw, beans and sweet tea) and they did team roping -- all for free. It was just local folks competing last night, but it was still a lot of fun to watch. There was even a kid--maybe 12 years old or so--that was the "hindermost" part of a team. ;-) (For those who know nothing about team roping: they release a calf and two cowboys on horses chase him down, the first cowboy ropes the calf's neck or around his horns, then the second cowboy ropes the calf's hind feet.) The kids were sooooooooo excited! Theyv'e never seen anything like this before and they thought it was terrific.
The only bad part about all of it is that Joe is still on his cowboy-stuff ban (it ends this next Wednesday) and so he wasn't able to dress up in all his duds like Katie and Sam did. It was really hard to follow through on that one and I almost cracked and let him wear them "just this one night," but James got me straightened out and we stuck to the rules. It was pretty hard on him (and me too!), but maybe it will get through to him all the more to watch his attitude an avoid future trouble because you just never know when you're going to be able to go see cowboys around here. Right??? ~sigh~ I sure hope so! Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the kids who were able to dress for the occasion...
Enjoying dinner...
The kids were thrilled to meet Rio, up close!
Rio was sweet, but rather nervous as you can see! His ears were layed straight back like that in all of the pictures! Ha! -- Notice the spurs and chaps Sam is sporting, compliments of Sister Clarkson. ;-)
It was a lot of fun and a great environment (it's smoke and alcohol free) and there were tons of little cowboys and cowgirls there! My kids were loving it!!!
I'm going to try to get motivated today to paint the new chairs for the kids. I'm running low on energy for some reason and would really rather loaf. We'll see what happens. The kids are out back playing right now. The only thing we've really accomplished today was devotions and even that wasn't a smashing success. Joe was cutting up and I had to get on to him. (So much for the cowboy ban helping his attitude! Ha!) After we were all done, he showed me the picture he'd been drawing. This time it was a monster with big, gnarly teeth thinking about me being in jail. For real--he'd drawn the thought cloud with little dots linking it to the monster's head, and in the thought cloud was a stick figure with long hair, frowning behind bars. That kid. Katie and Sam were released to go play and Joe had to sit and draw another picture (a nice one) before leaving, but somehow I don't think I'm winning with this kid! I notice that nobody out there had any suggestions on how to deal with the traps either. (Thanks a lot, you guys!) You know--after he gets in trouble for something he'll go around the house with that evil cackle of his, setting his "traps" right by my chair, or right in front of me while I'm walking, or wherever he thinks I might go next. Emilee, what would you do??? Or how 'bout some of you who have successfully raised your kids already?! Isn't there anybody out there who can help me???
Losing to a 5 year old,
~Becki~
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