Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo

This past weekend we attended the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, as we try to do every year.  It was a beautiful day with glorious weather -- and enormous crowds!  If you've never been to the Houston Rodeo it's hard to imagine the scope of this event, but believe me, it is massive.  It takes place over almost 3 weeks, with thousands of people in attendance each day.  The day we attended, there were 71,000 people at the rodeo!!

The livestock show takes place in the huge Reliant Arena.  The girls enjoyed viewing and petting the animals -- we'd never seen pigs this big before, and the girls had never been that close to a Longhorn!

We also enjoyed walking around the carnival; though it was so crowded that it was hard to move at times!

After several hours of walking and enjoying the exhibits and the carnival, we went inside Reliant Stadium for the rodeo and a performance by Selena Gomez.  

 

As you can see from the pictures above: this is rodeo on a HUGE scale!

The best thing about the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo is that it is all for charity -- over the years, the rodeo has raised millions of dollars to send literally thousands of kids to college on scholarships.  It's an enormous undertaking that does an enormous amount of good.

The second best thing about the rodeo is carnival food -- specifically, fried carnival food. Each year we endeavor to try something new.  Two years ago we tried fried Oreos -- yum!  Last year we tried fried Snickers -- double yum!  But this year we tried my new favorite: fried Moon Pie!  Think Moon Pie, inside a warm beignet, with powdered sugar on top.....   Wow.  [It was too dark by then to get a good picture of it, sadly!]

If you're ever in Houston around rodeo time, don't miss it!