pop tart

we always talk about this, but i'd never actually seen it...

____________________________________________________

today is my pop tart's birthday.  sometimes that's what i call him.  "what's cookin, pop tart?"  ok, i don't really say that, but sometimes i really do call him pop tart.
sometimes i just call him boyfriend.
and today it's his birthday!  and he's (in his own words, i'll have you know) 'an old ass man'!
and in just 5 short (but probably very looong and dragging) days, he gets to come visit me!  and i can't wait!
as he doesn't have skype, we haven't seen each other since the day that i left wyoming.  here is what we looked like back then:

i told him i would bring a sign with me to the airport in case he didn't recognize me since it's been so long (aka 3 1/2 months).

real live second rodeo

have i ever shown (showed?) you this one?  so beautiful.

we went back to the rodeo.  and again, we forgot how to take pictures until the actual rodeo was over.  or more like a 10 year old girl worried about chasing boys was climbing the fence in front of us and stick her butt out in our faces.  or rather, erica's face.  and when we (again, erica) asked her to move over a little, she pretended not to speak english.

here is a little taste of the rodeo we saw (courtesy of google)

the announcer was saying how girls had travelled across the country just to compete in this barrel thing.  and then almost every girl fell off their horse during the turns....the 6 year olds that competed did better than the professionals.  maybe it's because their horses weren't wearing socks...

(this photo is actually from jubilee days)  

my favorite one of the sheep riding was a little girl in a dress.  when she fell off she landed on her butt and then she fell back with her legs in the air and her dress came above her head and all you could see were her hot pink panties!!

another event where professionals around the world were "the match of the night" on world class bulls that hadn't been ridden in 3 years.  this was all we saw.  

this roping/wrestling thing was too violent for erica and noe.  they had to go walk around until it was over.

and here is what our photos showed happened:

we were trying to self-portrait... also, that's mikah's beer i'm holding.  i was the driver!!

mikah, claire, noe, erica 

things are not working out.  i just got done telling mikah about my pitty sweats (instead of sweaty pitts), and i'm sorry it's on your  shoulder, so i was laughing really hard with my fake teeth.  (don't they look fake?)  and then we laughed hysterically for about 10 minutes about how tan erica makes mikah look!

real live rodeo experience

my sister recently introduced me to a new and fantastic place.  everyone needs to go there.

_____________________________________

a while ago i went to my first real live rodeo.  i've been at (or in the vicinity of) rodeos before, but never at the actual rodeo part, where the cow roping and riding around barrels and bull riding happens.  noe (which is pronounced know-y) and i tried taking pictures of all the amazing things, but nothing really worked out.  so here is our evidence, in which you can't even tell where we are (but the giant cowboy should give you reason to believe....according to noe)

doba (as in qdoba), claire (uh, duh), big rodeo cowboy mayor guy, noe (who was desperate to take photo with said big rodeo cowboy mayor guy)

noe, claire, doba

claire dancing with a 17 year old (sometimes it's hard for me to remember that i am not, in fact, 17 anymore, but this kid made it very obvious), a 17 year old that noe found while she was soliciting for boys (she is 30 and married...). but instead of dancing with them herself, she guilts other people into dancing with these poor solicited souls.

texas nature

when arley comes to visit, we are going here!  i can't wait!  some water to go with this heat will be really great!

________________________________________________

i do like the trees and the plants here.  even though they cause "the worst allergies in the country."  some of the trees still have flowers on them from when i got here in may.  the flowers grow 8 feet tall.  however, the bugs in these trees and flowers are big enough to bite your face off.
and did you know that crickets are very black and spidery and creepy?  and they fly??  but don't worry about me.  the two that have gotten in have been caught, and tortured, and eaten by the heroic oni cat.

the art of unpacking. and re-unpacking.

i just kinda like this one... (try not to cringe, mama!)

___________________________________________

it took me a while to unpack once i moved to texas.  in fact, i still have a few frames to hang on my walls...
not that that should be a surprise to anyone.  it takes me weeks just to unpack a suitcase from a 2 day trip.
i was finally making some progress, working so hard to feel at home in my little blah apartment.  and just when i started to feel like i was getting there, that progress was cruelly, cruelly undone...

the newspapers were originally all stuffed in the blue thing.  but Someone thought they would do something about that....