A Little Bit Country

A real Texas Longhorn
An all-black riding club.  We thought the horses would make great refs!
Standing in line for our free hot dogs
An iron worker
How cute is this little girl riding a pygmy pony?!
Old-fashioned riders
Trick riders
God Bless America and God Bless Texas!
A lot of pride (and poop)
Nate and Keilah watching the parade go by
Our front row seats to the parade

Since Nate and I have been back in Texas, we've decided to make a really big effort at getting to know Texas.  We thought it'd be fun to do something very Texan so we got online and found out a few things.  We ended up going to the Fort Worth Stampede Rodeo Livestock Parade this past Saturday (Jan. 17th).  It was supposed to be a warm day (60ish) so we dressed somewhat warm and headed down to downtown Ft. Worth.  When we got there, it was so windy that it felt like it was in the 40s!  Thankfully I was wearing my maternity puffy vest and had also brought my coat and Keilah's in the car.  Nate didn't bring a coat and therefore had to improvise.  He chose my maternity vest (over my puffy red coat w/ a furry hood :) ) and I wore my coat.  So, the photos of us are a little strange, but we were warm!  

We apparently attended the largest non-locomotive parade in the world.  All the floats, carriages, wagons, etc. were pulled by livestock.  We saw over a thousand horses, mules, donkeys, ponies, longhorn (of course in Texas!), and even some "zorses" (zebras bred with horses.  They looked awesome!).  Keilah had a blast looking at all the different animals and got excited every time they neighed, brayed, or mooed.  The wind was so strong and we were right on the sidewalk that the smell of horse poo engulfed us.  We played it cool though because we wanted to look really "Texan."  After the parade was over a few of the local businesses put on a fair-type of thingy for the families.  We got to eat some real "chuckwagon" food (beans, biscuits, and stew).  We also got free hot dogs and soda from Mrs. Baird's bakery and Coca-Cola.  It had warmed up by then and Keilah had fallen asleep so Nate and I took our time walking around and checked out all the booths, people, animals, etc.  It was such a fun day and we had a hootin' hollerin' of a time learnin' to be like Texans!