I already told y’all about the first of our Rodeo excursions this year and after our McMaster Finale to the 2011 Houston Rodeo the other night, I figure it was fitting to do a blog about the rest of our Rodeo experiences over the last week or so.

I wonder, when my parents had me, did they realise they were raising a Southern Gal in the making?  I mean, Texas (and the deep South) have certain reputations and when you mention ‘Texas’ everyone can rhyme off a long list of stereotypes that spring to mind (when I first moved here, I expected to get off the plane to be greeted by cowboys and was so very disappointed when there were none in sight!)

Over the last two years, I’ve grown to realise that Texas gets a bad rap.  Maybe it’s that, or, perhaps I’ve just grown to embrace my inner Southerner…who knows?

Either way, as it turns out, I’m a boot wearin’, y’all sayin’, country music appreciatin’, rodeo lovin’, big hair-d (and big chested!) Southern gal…Col tells me that being a Bush supporter is the next step – I’m fighting that with every fibre of my being! LOL!  (I don’t like cornbread, Nascar, chicken fried chicken or grits though so I’ve not been sucked in all that much right?)

Anyway, last Thursday we went to the rodeo for the 2nd time this ‘season’.  We’d picked up some comp tickets from a friend and as it happened, it was for the Rascal Flatts! I wanted to see them last year (but we couldn’t afford to pick up tickets) so these tickets were serendipitous!

The competition side of things is exciting, which I think most people don’t expect.  Each night takes the same format, the cowboys are competing for cold hard cash and it’s not ‘just for fun’ for these guys, it’s their livelihood.

There are around 9 competitions in total, these vary in skill sets and hide-your-face-worthyness (yes, that’s a real thing…ok, so I may have made it up).

– Tie Down Roping (a guy jumps off a moving horse to tie all 4 legs of a calf together)

– Bareback Riding (a guy sits bareback on a horse that’s bucking like crazy!)

– Team Roping (2 riders, 1 calf, one rider has to lasso the head and the other has to rope both of his feet together).

– Saddle Bronc Riding (like bareback riding only with a saddle)

– Steer Wrestling (a guy jumps off a moving horse to wrestle a steer to the ground)

– Bull riding (yes, these cowboys are crazy enough to sit on a bull while it goes buck-daft, there are also bull fighters present to distract the bull once he’s catapulted the rider off his back and occasionally into a metal wall or other inanimate object.  The bull fighters are often more insane than the riders!) This competition has a high hide-your-face factor!

– Chuck Wagon Racing (horse drawn wagons raced around the arena)

– Calf Scramble (Twice the number of kids than there are calves, release the calves into the arena and the kids start chasing.  You’ve gotta catch the calf, stick a rope around his nose and lead him in to the centre of the arena).

– Women’s barrel racing (women racing horses around barrels and trying not to knock them over and get around them in the fastest time)

and to finish the competitions, they have one of my personal favourites,

– Mutton Bustin’ (place a small child on the back of a big ole sheep and watch them run across the arena!)

It’s such a fun night of crazy!

After the competition events have finished, they have a 1 hour performance by an artist. For the most part they are Country-esque, a large number of them tend toward pop-country and for the last two years the headline acts have been pure pop (Black Eyed Peas last year and Janet Jackson this year!).

They set off a few fireworks to kick off the concert – which always goes down well

Rascal Flatts were pretty good live, the lead singer has a bit of a nasal voice, which I’m not a huge fan of by any means, but they sure do have talent!

What I liked about them was that they didn’t stick solely to their own music.  I guess at an event like the rodeo, it’s important for the act to realise that not everyone is there specifically to see them – they’ve got to appeal to the masses and try to show that although they do their own music and people enjoy it, for those who may NOT know who they are, that they can do other things, or that they can at least entertain them as well!

They did a few cover numbers here and there and they ended their set with a classic rock medley that Colin especially appreciated.  My favourite was ‘Life is a Highway’ which has always been a favourite of mine!

Friday (yes, we went to the Rodeo two days in a row), brought with it shopping! Col and I, last time we were up at the outlets in San Antonio, had agreed that we’d buy ourselves some boots – actually, it was before then, I think we’ve pretty much wanted boots since we got here but just never got around to getting them, we agreed that it was time for that to change!

We’d checked out the Cavendars store up in San Marcos and decided that we’d hold out and see what the rodeo had to offer! Both of us were in the market and both Magz and Sandra bought boots at the rodeo last week, so we decided it was time to shop!

After a long dander around the shopping hall, I finally found my boots!

As Rachel in Friends says, ‘I got new boots, boots!’

They came with a $20 Mail in Rebate which just made the deal even sweeter!  Col on the other hand couldn’t find a pair of boots – yes, mainly cause we spent so much time looking for mine, but we did shop for him and just couldn’t find anything, plus the place was totally hiving and we couldn’t get around some of the shops – they were just too busy!

Lady Antebellum’s gig was good, they were good, they weren’t great, they weren’t as good as the Flatts the night before but they weren’t bad either!

I enjoyed the show, though it was pretty much just like listening to their album and I don’t tend to favour that when I go to see a live show.

The guy singer is an excellent singer, the girl – kind of like the singer from Rascal Flatts who I mentioned above – is very nasal and ended up just bugging me in the end! LOL!  It was an enjoyable night none the less!

Saturday we joined the Maddens,  the puppy dogs and one of Sam’s Geco friends (who was visiting H-Town) down at Galveston Beach for the afternoon.  Probably not the best timed trip, as Spring Break had hit so the place was coming down with what I assume was college kids.  Kids? Ohhhh boy, when did that happen? I’m OLD!

Anyway, we were over an hour late for the trip to the beach (a variety of things conspired against us!).  We swam in the chilly Gulf of Mexico, uncle Col threw the Frisbee for the dogs countless times (and in the end poor Bazil drank too much Gulf-water and ended up being sick!) and we both came away sporting some rather ‘Northern Irish’ sunburn.

After the Maddens headed home, we decided to take a jolly little drive, the long way home, around the coast.  It was gorgeous, the sun was shining, the waves were lapping and the multi-coloured houses on stilts made us want to holiday down there.

For dinner, we tried a new Chinese in the area – one which, wait til you hear – sell chips! Man! We’ve been waiting for this moment for almost 2 years! haha! Anyway, the food was great and I spent the evening creating a photobook with our wedding photos resulting in a 4am bedtime.

Sunday, we both woke up late, which should have been my first clue.  We were both sick! I’d like to think that it was our chilly-dipping in the Gulf that did it, but I have a feeling it’d been working on us for a few days prior.  Feeling sick made me totally non-plussed about what was put on to watch on the TV, so, Col subjected me to another Arnie movie…Total Recal…it was pretty bad…in a cheesy, 80’s action film kind of way…

Monday and Tuesday, we were still sick and the only thing to note from those two days, is that on Tuesday morning, at 2am, we ended up in Walgreen’s for Robitussin and DayQuil/NyQuil.  UGH.  Yes, it was that bad – neither of us could stop coughing long enough to doze off!

Tuesday night, I sucked it up – or, should I say drugged up (on Robitussin and cough sweets) and we headed back to the Rodeo.  We had a gift to pick up that we’d ordered a few nights prior, we had to shop for Col’s boots and, the concert was pretty much the only one of the 4 we had tickets to, that Col had any interest in going to – I couldn’t miss it!

He found a pair of boots, the only problem was, they didn’t have them in his size.  Boo! We are gonna have to order them online for him, cause we both really liked them!

Col bought me ice cream to soothe my burning throat, it came in an adorable pink cowboy hat tub and it was most definitely well received!

I know, I look like crap (mainly cause I felt like crap! LOL!) but boy was the ice cream was deeee-licious!

The show was one of the best live gigs I’ve seen.  They were fab! I only knew 1 of their songs before I saw them (I’m sure you can’t guess which one!) but I came out a fan.  They totally raised the roof – and, although I felt like complete crap, I really had a great time!

Today, I’m still sick, I made an appointment to see the doctor tomorrow and will hopefully put an end to the nastiness that is me hacking up organs!  Col isn’t much better, but, being the manly man that he is, he’s doing what any self respecting man would do – ignoring it!

I did manage to get some groceries yesterday, however, that’s progress! Aside from the Kiss concert on Tuesday night, it was the first time I’d left the house since last Saturday, and I pretty much coughed all over Kroger – yummy!

Well, that about brings to a close our 2011 Rodeo Houston experience…I have to say, I love it more this year, than I did last year and I have a feeling that regardless of where we are next year,  I’ll love it more still!

Until next time…