The Vale 4th of July Rodeo and Suicide Race is a BIG deal in our community. It is a major fundraising opportunity. I use to innocently sometimes attend and think "oh that's nice those kids walking around with treats, and the yummy super bad for your heart food is an rare indulgence." Yet, the last two years as we've gotten more involved in life here and learned it is a major source of fundraising. This year we are another year older and more in need/want of funds to support our club activities, so off to the rodeo we went. I have been working on the project graduation fry shack set-up for a couple of weeks. They sell curly fries, corn dogs, pretzels, nachos, and drinks. The 4-h kids sell cotton candy and peanuts. The junior class is selling snow cones. The FFA kids take tickets and new this year clean the rodeo grounds. Yes, remove all the garbage littered on the ground and stands. Clean up all the water bottles and cans which is literally money on the ground. That ten cents adds up quickly.
So after enjoying a very good rodeo last night and because the kids were totally hopped up on cotton candy, at least 6 bags of the stuff, with some snow cones on top and a few sides of curly fries (I tried to support all the booths). We made a quick decision to use that sugar power and quickly clean up a section instead of trying to drag our tired bones back early this morning.
I began trash can sorting. There's lots of money/cans just tossed. We cleaned a portion of the stands, then were asked to do more. A rodeo board member showed Harold where the side-by-side ATV was to remove the garbage. So we kept working.
Filling it up with kids and garbage. He made sure and buckled them in. He's a great oldest brother safety first!
I had nursed Alia to sleep and she had stayed that way through the rodeo end and our exit to the car. However, when I realized the work would be easy and thought a little about our state I understood we should just get to work rather than fighting to get excited kids into bed. Harold went and got Lia from the car in the way she is accustomed to being toted. The baby pack. He quickly found the opportunity it offers free hands! Now I have never and probably will never do pullups with a baby on board but he was able to quickly crank out several with her along for the ride.
While we waited for Harold to dump the garbage in the brand new side by side with no one watching... not saying anything there. We moved to the chute area. The kids were amazed at how small the shoots are. They of course being farm kids explored and climbed.
We were even more amazed at how many cans and bottles we found back there. Gold mine mother lode!!
The air was thick with Saunders Power. The clean up was not as bad as we had heard. Really it was easy with all of us. That's the good part it was all of us. My heart swells to all be together. After a really worrisome day, hoping we could fulfill all our commitments (We are not proficient saying no), trying to keep track of all the kids, and raise funds so we didn't have to earn them elsewhere it was so peaceful and fun. Truly all the rodeo lights were on it was quiet, perfect temperature and we were free to explore. The kids were in a good mood all could do something or climb something remember sugar high to burn through, and we were together.
My bare arms were covered in beer and pop but it was ok. The big kids managed the baby and little who happily roamed and scavenged along. The short height of the bleachers made it much easier for our little people than our big people to pick up trash.
So that's a wrap. A family fun night Greg and Amanda style. Enjoying eating, visiting, watching, then working. That's our family. I am slowly coming to accept that badge. We aren't highly talented in instruments or fine arts, but we do appreciate those skills. We aren't athletic stars, yet, but we can work and it is true that the world needs workers.
Hopefully when we make our report to God someday we will not be found with buried talents. I guess you could say we multiplied our two into 12 working talents! Ha. Life is so good together no matter what you do. But truly this was a great evening mom and dad both laughed real laughs a few times, that is very rare. And when we got home at 11:40 p.m. The kids were ready to go to bed! Win!
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