Saturday 26th February

This is Saturday! We took a trip downtown Houston to watch the Rodeo Parade and Race. We met up with our good friends Jeff and Elizabeth Morris and their little ones Katherine and Joey. We got our places pretty early and had an hour to wait before any action. Lilja was still very much under the weather but only had to sit and watch, better than sitting at home. The middle picture shows the Chevron (used to be Enron) building which Ben worked in in 2005. Here we are watching the 10km run, made a pact to be running in it next year not watching:)

We all got little flags given us to be little patriots:)

Here is the start of the Rodeo Parade, the Rodeo and Livestock show itself is held at a Stadium nearby. Some of the Trail Riders had ridden in to town for hundreds of miles from all over, I think the furthest away was Arkansas. Loads of fun to watch, some beautiful horses- some very highly spirited thoroughbreds, some work horses, police horses, mules and just plain pretty horses.

Here is the Houston Rodeo float, the local mounted police and the local TV weather man. We saw the Mayor and other local dignitaries, the local University and several school marching bands and cheerleaders.

Several of the supermarkets had floats, here is the H.E.B. float. H.E.B. is a Texas only store, it is an amazing shop- it has quality produce with wonderful organic food and veg. It also has H.E.B. Buddy who is their mascot, in store the cashiers give the kids 'Buddy Bucks' which they can use on a sort of one arm bandit type machine. They earn points towards all sorts of goodies. I think it is encouraging them to like gambling, of coarse the kids love it! They were delighted to see the H.E.B. Buddy.

After each batch of riders the road sweepers had to come and clean up!

Here is Lilja taking a nap, still not on top form. This is the Wells Fargo carriage. In the 'old days' this was the post wagon, and took post all over the country with swift ponies. Wells Fargo is now a bank (we bank with them). Naomi and Katherine enjoyed watching the rodeo whilst munching on doughnuts:)

I think this picture speaks for itself ! We had a great time, so glad Jeff and Elizabeth showed us this fine tradition.

As I am writing this on Monday and not Saturday I now cannot remember what we did in the afternoon. We did go out for dinner at Saltgrass in the evening. Had a wonderful family time. We do love exploring restaurants:)