The Kasperson Family: Ward Rodeo

That's right, folks. Our ward has their very own ward rodeo. And it's awesome!!! Something we quickly learned after moving into this neighborhood is that nothing in this ward gets done half way. It's awesome and intimidating all at the same time. :) Not that I ever do anything half way ... but holy cow, I've never seen things done before at the level they're done at around here. We have a ward full of some amazing, hard working, and talented people!

Our ward does this rodeo every year. It's a 2 day event and from what we've been told they scaled things back A LOT this year compared to past years. I seriously don't know how this rodeo could have been any better than it was - it's hard to believe it was scaled back!!

The first day, there was a hoedown in back of the church. They had tug of war ropes, a caller for all the dancing, hay rides, cake walk, a car show, an outdoor movie, and of course food.

The second day there was a parade. David and the girls were in it and they took turns riding the scooter. My mom and step dad came to enjoy the festivities and sat on the sidelines with Kyler and I to watch the parade.

There was all kinds of fun things to do throughout the day!! There was a firetruck there squirting everyone down at the end of the parade (it was a HOT day!). Someone was there giving 4 wheeler rides to the kids too. After the parade was over, there was a breakfast and then the rodeo began.

David and I were in charge of the pre-rodeo activities ... pretty much kids carnival type games.
Here's what we came up with (some were activities they had done in years past that were pretty much tradition, so we brought them back again this year):

-cow tipping: (not REAL cow tipping) We painted empty milk cartons white and put black spots on them to look like cows. We did several of them and then turned them upside down so they were standing on the cap. Kids would take turns shooting them with a dart gun to knock them over.
-bean bag toss
-face painting
-grease pole climb (With money at the top of it for incentive. I'm still shocked people tried to climb it. NO amount of money could get me to climb a pole and get covered in gobs of crisco. Ick!! Besides, I know I wouldn't make it to the top anyway!!) ... luckily, someone other than us was in charge of greasing the pole :D
-bull ringer: David made a bull with a really long neck out of a work horse and the kids would try and toss hoola hoops around it's neck.
-bucket head: The kids strap a bucket to their head and someone throws bean bag balls in the air and the kids try to catch them in the bucket.
-hot walker swings: A hot walker with swings on it and someone spins the hot walker around so the kids fly around in a big circle.

There were cheap prizes at all the game stations for the kids, too. The kiddos had a blast!!

For the actual rodeo, they had hay jumping, mutton busting, cash cow, a chicken chase, and a little talent show. I played the fiddle for the talent show ... and messed up as usual - but hey, at least I did it! David accompanied me on the guitar.

Allyson decided she wanted to try the mutton busting. It made me so nervous!! I was scared she'd fall off and get trampled. When they called her name and it was her turn, she took one look at the sheep and decided not to do it. Not gonna lie ... I was really glad!!

I had never heard of a cash cow before (I've also never been to a rodeo before, so maybe it's a common thing to do), but pretty much they stuck a bunch of dollar bills all over a cow, let it loose and then everyone chased after it to get the money off of it. Pretty crazy!!

They served nachos, cotton candy, popcorn, and snow cones throughout the whole rodeo. Yummm.

And they had t-shirts people could buy that said 37th ward rodeo on them. They were nice t-shirts too!

The whole thing was an awesome experience!!