A Very Wet Strawberry Days

Strawberry Days are going on this week in our little town. There are a lot of things going on but the highlights are the carnival, rodeo and today was the children's parade. 

We have not participated in the parade since moving here. Yes I know, we're lame. I promised the kids last year that we would be in the parade this year. As I was getting Andrew fed before we took off I noticed half of the sky was very dark. Like there was no way in the world that it wouldn't rain dark. Sure enough, it started to rain while we were in line waiting for the parade to start. We had an umbrella so all was well. 

Here they are holding the sign so our ward would know where to line up. 

These are Maggie's kids, Kyle and Olivia, all decked out for the parade. 

It took a while for the mob, I mean paraders, to get moving. Emma, Jenna and Andrew were on their scooters. Before I knew it they were gone. They were suppose to stay with our ward but they decided to race ahead on be in the front of the pack. There were cops everywhere, the parade route was short, I knew nothing would happen, but I still felt the need to find them. I took off as fast as I could, leaving my friends behind, to catch up with them but I never did. 

They were already at the final destination before the front of the parade even got there. I was ticked. I made them feel pretty bad for taking off like they did. 

They broke the rules and the biggest sin of all, they denied me photo ops. I have no pictures of them in the parade. I have no pictures of them by their ward friends. I have no pictures of my friends. I had no clue where they were. I didn't get to spend time with my friends. I had to walk fast which is almost like exercise. Good grief. It all just sucked. 

They did get their popsicles and their stamp to get into the rodeo for free tonight. 

When we got home we all started twisting Paul's arm. He really didn't want to go. I really thought we should. We won and Paul pouted all the way to the rodeo grounds. 

These are the sheep from the Mutton Bustin'

Here is Emma at her first Rodeo
And Andrew with his new and improved (Really? Is it?) mohawk.
The "cash cow". The kids get to chase this little cow and try to get the money off of it. We didn't get there in time to get the kids involved. Next year.

We were there about 30 minutes when it started to sprinkle. Hey, no big deal. Look how happy we still are.

We got our Strawberries and Cream and hung out a while longer. 

Then it started to rain. A lot of really wet, cold, rain. We didn't have an umbrella. Paul was in shorts and a t-shirt. Our sweatshirts weren't doing us much good. We stayed another 30 minutes before we gave up. The kids had so much fun it was sad that we had to leave so soon. We got to see some mutton-bustin, some bareback horse riding and a few other things before we left. They are already talking about next year.