Mutton Bustin'

As the previous post mentions, we spent the entire day at the Beltrami County Fair yesterday. One of the highlights was going to the rodeo. A few days before the rodeo Eli and Sadie asked if they could ride the sheep and we reluctantly said yes thinking that they would never do it. Before the day of the fair, we watched some youtube videos so they knew what they were getting into. They learned from those videos that they probably wouldn't be on the sheep for more than a second and they learned that they would probably fall hard and fast. They knew that they'd have to hug a sheep pretty hard wearing a heavy-duty vest and hockey helmet.
The time of the rodeo came and the kids were looking pretty ragged considering we'd already spent 7 hours at the fair and Sadie was beginning her meltdown. So, when they called all the registered kids down for the mutton busting we were surprised when the kids happily jumped up and went down to the gate.
Eli and Sadie watched as the 15 kids before them instantly fell of the sheep as soon as they got on and 2 left crying before they even got on the sheep. Then they called Eli's name and he was on a sheep and did this:



He stayed on the longest of all the kids! Sorry the video is so bad, but I got pretty excited. I wish it showed his fall, him standing up and waving to the crowd, the crowd cheering loudly and him limping out of the arena (apparently the sheep landed on his leg). But, I'm no videographer so you're just going to have to take my word for it.
Then, it was Sadie's turn:



(I swear I was going to do better on her video, but I just get too darn excited.) She stayed on a smidge longer than most of the kids, but you can tell that it's over quite quickly. Sadie was a little shook up afterwards, but then was talking about next year when she rides the sheep at the rodeo...