Hellzapoppin' Rodeo!

Last weekend, my mom drove me, Elsa, and two of my little sisters all the way out to Buckeye to participate in the Hellzapoppin’ Rodeo. We were only three minutes away when my mom realized that she had forgotten her flip-flops. But wait, it gets better. When we got to our little patch of dirt to pitch a tent, I saw that I had no blankets. Or pillows. My mom had a cot. But no sleeping bag. On the other hand, my little sisters, Julie, age 6, and Ivy, age 4, came well prepared. Their bags were stuffed full, so we thought they were all good to go, right? Well, they had about three blankies, two unicorn pillows, two socks, and two shirts between the two of them. No wonder the bags were full… unfortunately, they had no jeans. But! Mom stuck a pair each into the car, just in case.

So Elsa was very excited, and she was eager to see everything. She did very well warming up, but was pretty spooked when she was right next to the booming speakers. She is quite the dancer, as we found out. We just loped (a slower run) the hot lap, as Elsa doesn’t know how to gallop. And she never will, hopefully.

Handing out autographs and selling raffle tickets was really fun, and I met a very cute little cowgirl who was really excited to see the sparkly rodeo queens. (I hope I see you there!) She brought over some friends of hers, and I was pretty busy signing autographs for awhile, because the friends kept bringing more friends, and they brought more friends, and well, you get the picture. I was definitely occupied.

When we got back to the tent, my mom decided she wasn’t going to sleep without a sleeping bag, so we all huddled up as best we could. As expected, we were all running for the car and the heater within hours. It would have been fun to stay in the tent the whole night, though. Oh, and by the way, everyone else had RV’s. With beds. And heaters. And more insulation. So…

Saturday was really fun. Of course no one wanted to get out of the car, but at 9:30 in the morning, what else would you do? I went and rode Elsa, then we hung around the tent, without motivation to take it down. Finally, we took it down, and then I worked Elsa again. And then my mom and I played volleyball. We still had one section of the tent up, so we went and took naps in there for a while, before hosing down my hair at the horse wash rack (we couldn’t find the shower, and there weren’t any other options, ok! I didn’t really like it. Like, pretty much at all.). I read a book while I was waiting for my hair to dry (by the way, it was Artemis Fowl, and those are such amazing books!!!). I got dressed, and helped with the mutton bustin’ like the night before. Oh, right! Mutton bustin’ is where you put a little cowboy/cowgirl on a sheep, and they are awarded points for the best ride. The winner got a buckle, and the first place winner on Friday was a little cowgirl, and I am telling you, that girl was GOOD! Anyways, we helped out with that (we being the Queens, except Halle couldn’t be there on the second day. And Brittany was at another rodeo), and then took a picture. Elsa was better on Saturday, but still antsy. She wasn’t happy going into the gate before the “Happy Trails” thing at the end…so I was kind of late. Anyways, the drive home was very long, but we had a really good time.

Busy week!

Well,the Chick-Fil-A appearance didn’t go exactly as planned, but it was still pretty fun. We were given sodas, and we practiced autographs on those. We talked with each other and with the security guard who was driving around the parking lot. Almost my entire family came to see us, and my little cousin, Abby, was so excited about my crown, so I let her try it on… We also got our autograph cards, which look really neat!

 

We also went to a town council meeting, and that was really neat. We got to see some of the reports of the town’s status, and saw a new possible feature for the town website.  I had no idea that all of those things happened in the Town Hall! We even got to take pictures with the town councilmen and Mayor Barney.

Harkins groundbreaking

Today was the Harkins Theater groundbreaking ceremony in Queen Creek. It was really neat to go and see an event in my town, and it’s so exciting that we will get a movie theater so close to my area! We waited in the Queen Creek Marketplace next to the Target, where the new theater will be. Halle, Brittany and I were behind the VIP food table, while popcorn and waters were being handed out, t-shirts and cups were sold, and a drawing was held for a Target gift card. The mayor of Queen Creek, Gail Barney, came and gave a short speech, and expressed his excitement for the new Harkins Theaters. Dan Harkins himself came down and spoke to the many people that came to the event! It was so neat to see lots of other people that I knew. There were gift bags for the VIP’s and they had some really neat things, like t-shirts and cups and tickets. I am so excited to have a Harkins Theater in Queen Creek!

61st Annual Parada del Sol!

Saturday was the Parada Del Sol parade, in Scottsdale. Friday we girls got together and had a blast putting together flower "bustles" for the horses.  Basically, we used a foam floral block and stuck flowers all over and then used wire to hold it on to the saddles.  They turned out great!  Halle had made one similar before so she guided us through it and it went together quickly.

Elsa was looking rather…dusty, so we washed her up and used special purple whitening shampoo stuff (I know, that’s really confusing: purple stuff to turn a white horse actually white.). We loaded her in the trailer at 6:00, and we got to Scottsdale around 6:50. I was really nervous about Elsa, because she gets really nervous at new places. We had to unload her on the road, because the police had closed off the traffic for the parade, and we weren’t sure where the actual staging area was. We unloaded right next to the sidewalk, and met up with the other 2014 girls, and we put in the amazing tail bows my mom made, and the really nice flower-arrangement-saddle things that Halle, Brittany, and I made. We tacked up, and I was very impressed how well Elsa was behaving. People started trickling through the sidewalks, and a few people asked for pictures with my horse. And with me. I was really excited to wear my new chocolate hat and teal-and-tan boots.

Shannon and Makenna caught up with us within half an hour and we waited for the parade to start. I was looking around, and I saw this little tiny trailer, and I thought it was for tools or something, but it was actually a mini trailer for mini horses! They were so cute, and they looked like little puffballs of adorableness! I also saw these huge parade balloons. One of them was a green piggy bank, and the other was some kind of kangaroo. While we were waiting, we saw these amazing Arabian costumes, and the horses were so beautiful, and the costumes were very sparkly! It was so cool to see all the other groups of people that came to be in the parade. 

We waited some more on the road, in line for our turn to go. Elsa was doing very well, she was just tossing her head a lot, and she only stopped when she was going forward. I was walking in circles for a long time before she stopped doing that!

The actual parade was really fun, too. I discovered that smiling and waving hurts…a lot. At least, after you’ve done it for about an hour. I was very tired afterwards, but we all had a lot of fun.