James' Coutts Days Adventure

We had a wonderful day yesterday at the Coutts Days celebration. A great day of pancake eatin', parade watchin', candy catchin', rodeoin' fun! As soon as we got the the Rodeo, he asked if he would wear my cowboy hat. So I gave it to him. As soon as he put it on his head, he asked if he could ride a horse. I told him he couldn't ride a horse but he could ride a sheep. His face lit up and he was super excited about that. So during the intermission we headed out to the rodeo ring to wait his turn for a little mutton busting. I could tell he was getting a little nervous but when it was his turn he got into the chute, but he refused to wear the helmet, he had his heart set on wearing the cowboy hat. I was hoping he would get one of the "walking" sheep instead of one of the "bolting" sheep...but that wasn't the case.

After they got him on and opened the gate, the sheep just bolted and he didn't last long. Oh how he wailed when he hit the ground. Daniel and I were kinda laughing as we told him what a great job he did and he said 'NOT FUNNY! I fell off". But we told him he did awesome anyways, to which he said "NOT AWESOME, I fell off." But he got his medal and he thought that was kinda cool and wore it for the rest of the evening. He may not be doing that again next year, but I bet that he'll do it again when he is older and a little more capable of holding on and balancing. 

I think it is fabulous that all of my kids have given it a try...once. At least they can say that they did. James gave us a bit of another kind of adventure. While we were watching the rodeo he was playing under the grandstand with two older boys(Tansley's age) from our ward. I was sitting nursing Ella, but I could look under the bleachers and see him, but then suddenly he wasn't there anymore. The boys were still there, but no James, so I sent Kathryn to look for him, but she couldn't see him. So I handed her Ella and went to find him, with no luck. There were so many places he could have gone, and so many of them not safe for a 3yr old. I knelt down behind a car and pleaded with my Heavenly father to tell me where to go. I felt like I should have them announce it in case maybe he'd wandered off into the animal pens and someone had scooped him up out of harms way and was looking for me. Tansley and her friends left the rodeo grounds to look for him out at the playground while Daniel and I searched other places. Tansley found him hanging out with some older girls (who were kind keeping an eye on him)at the playground, which was really quite a distance from where we were watching the rodeo. I guess he had had enough and decided to go do something more entertaining. Nearly gave me a heart attack. What a kid.