Cowboy Tyler

I have a couple stories to preface the story this post is actually about. I know that sounds a bit confusing and yeah, it will be long, but just hang with me for a few minutes! The first story is to explain why I chose "Cowboy Tyler" as the title of the post. On one of our trips up to our family cabin in North Carolina last summer, Tyler and Lana located a couple of Pawpaw's hats that he wears when he's out in the sun mowing grass or whatever.
After putting one of the hats on, Tyler declares, "I'm Coyboy Tyler!" He got this from a Backyardigans episode he watched where they were cowboys (Cowboy Austin, Cowboy Tyrone, Cowgirl Uniqua, etc.) So that's how Cowboy Tyler came to be!

Now on to the next preface story, which has nothing to do with cowboys, but I'll get back to that. Back at the end of September, we went to the North Georgia State Fair. We go every year for the Beautiful Baby Contest, Petting Zoo, and RIDES of course! If you want to see pictures of this event, you can visit Tyler and Allison's websites. When we decided to call it a night, Billy headed out to the car with Tyler to pull it around and pick Allison and me up at the gate. After waiting patiently for what seemed like longer than enough time to get the car and pull it around, I started to wonder what problem they might have ran into. Come to find out, the delay was due to the fact that our socialite Tyler decided to approach the traffic cops in the parking lot to make friends. He started out by showing off his frog he won in the duck pond game and before his chat was over, he had earned the right to play with the sirens and lights on one of the police cars and got his very own police badge sticker! Too bad I missed the whole thing and wasn't able to take pictures! He made a great impression on one police officer in particular, who offered to let Tyler ride one of the police mounted horses if we would bring him back down to the fair Friday or Saturday night.

So of course, Satuday night we headed back to the fair and enjoyed feeding the animals, racing on a HUGE inflated slide, and eating kettle corn and candy apples. After killing as much time as we possibly could (it was getting pretty late) we realized that Tyler's friend wasn't going to get a break from the relentless parking traffic. Sadly, we had to leave without the much anticipated horse ride. We were able to briefly chat with Sergeant Mark on the way out and he was apologetic and offered to have us come back the next night. Since we had already spent money on gas to drive there twice (you all know that's not cheap right now) AND it would be Sunday, we decided against going back.

On Monday, Billy got a call from Sergeant Mark who told him that he felt horrible and that it wasn't sitting well with him that he wasn't able to get Tyler on a horse that night. He also told Billy that they see SO many kids while working at the fair, but none had left an impression on him the way Tyler had. So in an effort to make it up to Tyler, he wanted all of us to come out to the rodeo, courtesy of the Cobb County Sherriff's office! And FINALLY, he would get Tyler his horse ride.

So now here's the story this post was dedicated to...our rodeo adventure!

Upon arriving, we met up with Sergeant Mark who presented Tyler with his very own cowboy hat! He and a couple other "guys" from the office went in together to get it for Tyler. Upon becoming official, Tyler got on the horse and rode proudly...and in style! He had a blast and even got to "drive" the horse on his own!

Allison wanted in on the action too. She's going to do whatever she sees Tyler doing! She got up there and after observing the situation for a couple minutes, decided she wasn't going for a ride. She looked so cute sitting up on that big horse and it was definitely picture worthy!

When Sergeant Mark had to leave, we headed down to claim some seats for the "radio" (Tyler's name for the rodeo)....YEE HAW!!! Tyler loved watching the "big bulls" and Allison loved dancing to the music (of course!).

We decided to leave after most of the exciting parts had passed, but grabbed some ice cream on our way out. As we walked to the car I said to Tyler, "Wow Tyler, we had a great night! You got a cowboy hat, you got to ride a horse, get a balloon, watch the rodeo, and get ice cream. What was your favorite part?" Without hesitation he responded, "THE ICE CREAM! I LOVE CHOCOLATE!" However, I think his answer was a bit biased at the time. His response now is "the big bulls knocking the cowboys off and riding the horse!"