A Visitor from Japan

This summer we had the pleasure of meeting 15-year old our niece, Stacey, for the first time. She currently lives in Japan with her parents but visited her aunts and uncles this summer in Texas. Earlier this summer we took her to her first ever escape room and luckily we escaped with 48 seconds to spare. We had fun!

Janea is so elated to finally meet a cousin close to her age. (Judah has 2 cousins, one on each side of the family, within 14 months of his age.) I am sure the two of them will be Tweeting, Gramming instanly, Snapping the Chat, Timing their Faces, or whatever else people do these days to stay in touch, in the months to come.

Yesterday, we were able to spend a little extra time with Stacey and show her a bit of Texas-style entertainment. What is that, you wonder? Of course it’s a wild west show and rodeo. Yee-Haw! You can experience both on any given Saturday in the Fort Worth Stockyards.

As we drove down the brick roads of the Stockyards, I shared with Stacey, that you know you are an historic part of Anytown, USA when the road is paved with bricks or stones. We parked on the street and walked a few blocks along the old west styled storefronts of restaurants, honky tonks, and western novelty shops. We then made a u-turn and headed in the correct direction toward the Cowtown Colesium (Oops. My bad.) where we saw more of the same.

Despite the scenic detour, we arrived in time for the late afternoon Pawnee Bill Wild West show and learned about the history of the Wild West show and witnessed…

Gin-u-wine cattle drivin’

Trick ropin’

Trick horse ridin’…

and many other Wild West show favorites displayed by the cast of the 1-hour Pawnee Wild West show.

After the show, we had just enough time to peruse the shops in the Stockyards and eat some Texas BBQ at Riskey’s. The cousins were all smiles.

After chowing down our vittles, we moseyed on back to the historic Cowtown Coliseum, to attend what was Stacey’s and Benjamin’s, our nephew, first rodeo. It was a full event slate. There was bronco riding, calf roping, barrel racing and of course, bull riding, where the bulls won ever bout.

Benjamin, our nephew,  and Judah even chased a calf in the arena and thankfully did not return to their seats with malodorous evidence of the event on the bottom of their shoes.

After a long round trip, it was nice to be reminded why we love to call Texas home. Yee-Haw!