National Day of the American Cowboy

What an incredibly busy past few days! Friday was an average day at work after a long week, so a relaxing evening would have been nice. Instead, I went to the lake with Jessica and some of her friends from her church and got to go tubing which was a workout! When we first got there the wind was blowing pretty good, so I wanted to say underwater to keep warm. Eventually the wind died down and it was really comfortable, even at 9:00 when it was still daylight. I didn't have my camera with me in the boat, and I really wish I had because the sun set right behind the mountains and the almost full moon was coming up on the other side. It was absolutely incredible. It looked like a page out of that kids book about the Indian paintbrush with all the different hues and muted colors. I had a lot of fun out at the lake.

I spend the night at Jessica's because we were both working Saturday, celebrating the National Day of the American Cowboy at the museum. It's a good thing I did! We were using some of the calves out in the gardens for kids to look at and pet, and there was a lot more preparation involved in getting all the stuff together than we were expecting.

We had so many fun games and activities for all the kids. The education department (which I'm not working for, that's just where my office is) helped organize the whole day and included some of the Rodeo people. There was a stick-horse station where kids could make a stick horse that they could use later in the day in a barrel-racing competition.

The rodeo people set up a place to learn how to ride saddle-bronc style and also taught kids how to lasso. Carpentry built a plywood steer that kids could brand with a real branding iron (HUGE HIT!) and then an area where they could make their own brand out of pipe cleaners and stamp it on a paper cow with paint and take it home. The day was extremely popular and very successful.

(Daisy-the black heifer who was about 2 days old, and Dandy-the white bull who was a day old)

Sunday, I sang at church, and it went really well. I was pleased with how everything turned out. Then in the evening, I was invited over to Jonene and Pat's house for hamburgers and card games which was a blast. Jonene is the choir director and has been really nice to me all summer. We had a lot of fun playing games. They live in a straw-bale house so I got a lesson in how that was built which is really neat. Their house is up at the top of the hill by Beck Lake (Dad, that's the lake across from the airport) and have a great view of the entire town and Heart Mountain. I had a busy, but fun weekend.