On a tractor pull; parade; ranch rodeo; and my visit to the Keisters...

Many days have passed already since the Robinson Centennial, but as we had a very nice day together there as a family and took LOTS of pictures, I thought I'd shared some of them with you here. :)

Mom took this picture of my brothers and I just after we'd arrived and parked in the "Parking Lot"----a big, bumpy pasture.


These pictures are quite mixed up, but in the interest of saving time, I'll just write about them as they are....

In the afternoon, there was a huge tractor and pickup pull which our guys LOVED watching! Mom and I enjoyed it too, for a while, although it was very, very loud and it was also a very hot day, so we came away with sunburns!

Preparing the track by wetting it a bit and working it up.... (There were actually people out on the track, picking rocks and throwing them out of the way!)
This is the sled that everyone took their turn at pulling. They're adding weights to it in this picture:

This is one of the fancy looking pickups that was in the pull. This one actually was a disappointment and didn't even get going!

At 6:00, Mother and I headed over to watch the Ranch Rodeo, while the guys stayed to finish watching the tractor pull.

The cowboy in this picture (I know he's hard to see behind that bar in the corralling...) was the son of the lady sitting next to me, so we joined her in cheering for his team, as we didn't know anyone else anyway. :)

One of the things each team had to do was to rope a specific calf and then flip it over and tie its legs. The calves legs had to stay tied and it had to stay laying for 10 seconds. Each team tried to do all this faster than the other teams, so it was pretty fun to watch.

Another of the things they had to do was to rope their calf and then get it loaded in the stock trailer as quickly as possible---not as easy as it sounds, as the calves were not exactly small! This calf in particular gave the audience several laughs, as it ended up having 3 cowboys' ropes on it before it was actually caught!

In the morning, there was a very nice parade to watch. I really liked this old car:

See the sheep on this float?

At small town parades in ND, you get thrown LOTS of candy, whether you want it or not!

Mother, watching....

How do you like this "Tractor"?

Mmmmm... Nice cake!

Another neat car!

This father and son wore matching bib overalls. :) The little fella must be very comfortable with tractor rides, as he was sound asleep!

This was a funny entry: a Mexican and a Flinstone, each with their respective, uh, creatures:

Here are the ponies later, after they were through the parade.

A very old fashioned float...

After the parade was over, we had a picnic lunch in the park...

Some relatively new friends, Ron and Diane (she's actually a nurse at the nursing home, which is how I met her, but now she's good friends with Mother too) joined us after a bit. They stayed for part of the tractor pull show too....

There are many more pictures and videos I could share, but I think this gives you a good idea of what our time there was like.

Now, a bit about my time at the Keisters' home.....

Sarah, the children, and I cleaned the toy/music room pretty thoroughly the first afternoon. After all the work was done, the children were allowed to dump out their train set and play with it, thus the smiling faces! (Edmund and Ila below...)

We did many things that I did not take pictures of, like picking the cherries off of Sarahs' bushes and making delicious juice from them; sweeping then waxing the hard wood floor; cooking; going to the childrens' swimming lessons; cleaning upstairs a bit; and preparing for a farewell tea-party for some friends of theirs who are moving. Thursday evening, after the children were in bed and the dishes were done, Lane played piano for me, playing some of the pieces he's written. (He was my music teacher in years gone by.) Then he, Sarah, the baby and I watched "The Inheritance" before going to bed rather late. :)

Here is their precious sleeping baby, Arianwyn (4 months old)... I got to hold her many times while there and played with the children outside some of the time (swinging with all of them in the hammock was great fun!) so Sarah could get some sewing done.

This is Sarah arranging some flowers we picked for the tea party....

Yours truly, with the baby... ( Ila took this picture of me. :) )

...and here's James, and Ila. When we first met the Keister family, Ila was a little baby, so it's been fun to watch their family grow over the years!

It was sad to say "Good bye", but I had a house at home to help clean, plus a buck to pick up first, so I left shortly before people came for the farewell get together. Hopefully I can go again sometime! I love working with Sarah as she has so many good ideas about cooking/preserving foods, sewing, and homemaking in general.

Well, it is quite late now, but I did promise that I'd post pictures tonight, so I am doing so.

I worked at the nursing home again today, which is why this is so very late....

Be blessed~

Cora

PS. I'm curious... Do small towns all over America have parades every year/or at Centennials, or is that just a Northern thing?