Sunday, August 31, 2008

Man of Extremes: From Pretty Princess to Ram Rider

It started when our neighbor's daughter, who lives out of state, asked us to pick up and deliver something to her parents for their 30th Anniversary. We figured since it was Sally & Rick, we had to do something special. At the cost of a stack of Pokeman cards, Finn agreed to dress up as a girl and act like Lindsay when he took the loot over. As you can see, we had a lot of fun. Doesn't he look like his mom? Hit a Farmer's Market before it is too late . . .

Then Finn changed and we hit the Oregon State Fair. It is a tradition of ours so Steve can remember the good old days of judging udders and dumping over people in outhouses. It started out the usual way . . . watching llama's compete for grand reserve and Hildi nearly loosing her life on things she converts to balance beams. We thought the long horns were cool and Finn got up enough nerve to feed one an apple, even though one had just pooped and it reeked. The kids pretended to be pigs and walked the ramp to "load up." Then we ran into the Ram Riding "Mutton Busting" rodeo for kids and there was a big crowd gathered. We thought it sounded like fun. So got Finn in line to ride, really having no idea what it meant, but hearing the announcer say, "You'll come out a cowboy and have bragging rights at school." Just the thing we figured he needed. Well, Finn came out of the shoot (probably expecting the ram to go at a snail's pace with a leash) and instead made us proud, hanging on for his dear life on a ram bucking for longer than any other kid we saw later. As you can see the sheep's leg did catch Finn's back, so he did do some crying, but was back scaling walls a bit later. We lost our minds and rode the chair lift too . . . great idea with Ms. Figit Hildi, little between us and the asphault 30 feet below, and light rain. It wore us all out. We can't wait for next year.

No comments: