Wednesday, March 22 – It's rodeo time in Houston. We spent the day enjoying the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show. Wednesday is senior day with free admission. We chose to pay $10 so we could also see the rodeo events and the concert. The rodeo is held at the huge Reliant Stadium and nearby events center.
We were going to park off site and ride the light rail to the stadium, but the place we normally park was full so we bit the bullet and paid $15 for parking. It turned out pretty good because we were early enough to get close-up parking and jumped on the shuttle for a ride to the front gate.
We started at the horse arena and watched the kids showing their horses. We enjoy the kids that work so hard to prepare for these events. Even though we are not ranchers and don't really know much about horses, it is obvious these kids spend hours and hours preparing to show their horses.
This little girls was so proud parading her horse around the arena. 
Next, we went over to the events center where the livestock show is held. We started with the kids area where they were showing piglets being born, chickens laying eggs, cows being milked, and a petting arena for the kids. So far this livestock show there have been 12 lambs, 58 piglets, 16 calves born at the birthing area. Marsha just loves mingling with the kids and seeing these all goings on.
These guys acted like they were starving.
The boss man checking things out.
We then strolled through the livestock area. Today was cattle judging day. The livestock show is so huge they have to move animals in for the particular events. Pigs one week, sheep & goats another, cattle another week and so on.
Established as the Houston Fat Stock Show in 1932, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has grown to more than 30,000 entries. The Houston Livestock Show is organized by three categories of competitions: Junior Show, Open Show and Youth Show.
The Show is not only the largest livestock show, but also sets world records at the junior market show auctions. In 2016, junior auctions, including school art, totaled a record $12,350,133. (All info taken from the official website.) This year we saw some very unique colors on the cattle.
It was nice to see our neck brace for cows was a big hit.
After judging in the arena the winners are moved to an area where they are weighed and branded with the official Houston Rodeo brand. That was really cool to watch!
In the following photo, we saw this little girl with her dad earlier getting her prize position ready for the show. She took third place in her group.
Look how hot that iron is.
End result. No pun intended…lol
There is a sales area where everything from cowboy boots and hats to toffee is for sale. We did pickup a couple free toffee samples but passed on any additional purchases.
What a steal at only $175.00. We passed.
This guy was amazing.
No Paul!
How many of you go to a rodeo looking for a puppet? So strange.
They have wonderful information about Texas throughout the entire building.
Don’t worry about going hungry here. There are tons of places to eat with just about anything available under the sun.
Next up was relaxing at the wine garden. We shared a bottle of wine and listened to some music killing a little time until the rodeo began at the stadium. The weather was perfect and the wine garden was soon packed. We grabbed a quick sandwich and then headed over to the main event – the rodeo.
The gal at the table next to us had boots on that Marsha wants. She even poised so Marsha could get a photo.
Everything is bigger in Texas.
In our next blog, we’ll tell you all about the big rodeo!
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!
