March Montage

We started off the month saying good-bye to a truck that we'd had for nearly 20 years and getting J a belated birthday gift in a new truck. The old truck was great, but it was starting to show its age and we crossed our fingers each time the annual inspection came up. The new one is no-frills, but it seats four and gets better gas mileage than our SUV.

We also cheered on the 'horns as they made a deep run in the March Madness tournament - Elite 8! The backs of our heads even made it on the local news when they covered a watch party on a slow news day.

Owen continued to run circles around the track in hurdles and relays in March. The season culminated in the district championships where he ran in the 100M hurdles, 300M hurdles, and 4x200 relay. I tried all season to take a picture right as he was crossing a hurdle, but this was the best I could do (he's second from left).

Here's an exciting finish to the 4x200m relay. Owen was running the closing leg, and you can imagine how excited we all were, until we realized there was a whole other (faster) heat to go. Unfortunately, this awesome run didn't get them any points for the team. There are 17 junior highs in the district, and track seems to be low down on our coaches' list of priorities, compared to some of the other schools out there. It was still a fun season, and I think Owen will give it another try next year.

Lastly, I took an afternoon off of work and took the kids to the HLSR one afternoon. We hadn't been to the rodeo since our first spring break here. Like then, we went on another rainy weekday, and there were still thousands of people there.

We had a few hours to walk around before the main event, so we took in a youth horse show, pig races, and mutton bustin' fairly quickly. The latter reminded me of Owen's attempt 8 years ago! Good times!

We do like to look at the animals - lots of horses and just a few cows, since we were near the end of the whole rodeo. They even had llamas, though the llama parade had been cancelled due to the weather. I don't know what it is, but llamas crack me up! If you look closely, the one on the right knew to "smile" for pictures. 😄

And the babies - several pink baby piglets and a calf only one day old. So cute!

Finally, we made our way to the nosebleed seats in NRG Stadium for the main rodeo event. We didn't go to this last time, so this was our first real rodeo! And yes, behind us was no one. We were quite literally on the last row. The stairs made me a bit nauseous, and I was afraid I'd lose my balance and tumble down until I splatted.

Thankfully I didn't! And we took in all of the rodeo with a birds' eye view: calf roping, bull riding, barrel racing, and calf scramble, among others. It was highly entertaining, but we often watched the big screen rather than the actual event. I'd go again, but would get closer seats.

The post-rodeo concert was Chris Stapleton. He was pretty good, but I think he's probably a better show for smaller venues.

The kids were fading, so we left a little early to beat the crowds to the car. The carnival at night makes for a pretty background, doesn't it?