Stock Show 2013

After a miss last year (our first miss since Connor was born; I was sick and Brian had a big book deadline), we were able to go to the National Western Stock Show again this year. We ended up pulling the kids out of school for a day - I sold it to the teachers as an educational family field trip, not that any of them objected. As always, we had a really fun day celebrating the West and the Colorado heritage.

On the bus ride from the parking lot to the National Western complex; don't be fooled by Mason's pained face - it's his say cheese smile, he thought the bus ride was amazing-

The stuff we did on the kids education level- petting chickens, learning about agriculture and the like-

I loved this photo op spot; to the kids they had a camera and computer set up so it looked like they were on TV, and they also had these very strange songs playing that were popular songs but with farm kids singing farm lyrics to the music. It was...interesting.

Of course the petting farm is a favorite (kids, not mine - too germy and stinking and crowded)-

We loved visiting the Hawk Quest booth, where they had live a live owl, bald eagle, hawk and falcon that had been rescued (the owl had been electrocuted by a wire and as a result suffers from seizures; who knew?)

Tractors-

It's interesting to get up close to the livestock-

And the play area in the basement of the horse building, where we watch horses/riders warm up for their shows and such-

It's fun to look back on our years of doing this tradition; we have pics of baby Connor 9 years ago in some of these photo boards. Another fun year at the Stock Show!