Day 2
It's Sunday, and time for the city folks to meet the horses. In fact, Sharon's father hides out somewhere (I believe he spent the entire time cleaning up). But Sharon, Laura, Louise and I go out to meet Sarah, one of the tamer of the 8 horses Bob and Rosa currently own. We wonder what Laura's reaction will be -- the year before the church rented ponies for family night, and Laura was scared stiff, and Sarah was a lot bigger than those ponies. Well, it was like the plane, she loved it. She sat up tall and held the saddle horn while uncle Bob walked the horse around the yard. Then it was Louise's turn. Louise is not as young as she used to be -- getting up into the saddle proved to be an undertaking. She tried climbing up on the picnic table, but that didn't work. So she went over to the trailer Bob uses to haul the alfalfa in, and managed crawl onto the horse. It was then, that we realized that we brought the wrong camera -- we really should have brought the camcorder, we could have made some money. Then Sharon and I took our turns, and it was time for Sarah to go back to the corrall, and for us to go eat. We were going into Carson City to the buffet room at the Golden Nugget for the Champaign Brunch. Rosa and Charlie (Bob and Rosa's youngest) both work there, Charlie as a bus boy, and Rosa as a hostess. This was the start of a week spent stuffing ourselves silly, and having Rosa flitting around like a butterfly with her bottle of Champaign (at 10 am no less) was a bit surreal. We finished our brunch, and decided to look for some souveniers. No luck, all the souvenier shops were closed -- the casinos were all open, but no nick nacks. Oh well, we had to get back, because today was the big birthday party day. Rosa had 5 boys before she married Bob (Victor, Wayne, Tony, Max, and Miguel -- all of whom Bob adopted when they got married), as well as Charlie and his older brother John -- so it's a fairly large family. There was quite a crowd there that day -- 25 kids, and Laura stood out like a light -- especially as she was the only blonde, non-latina child there. She seemed to blend in well though, better than the adults -- 6 anglo's over here, 30 hispanics over there. The loud Tejano music may have had something to do with it. It was sort of like listening to opera, I couldn't understand a word they were singing -- but at least it had a good beat. The cookout went well, though when asked if I wanted to try some Tacitos, I mentioned that I don't eat ethnic foods -- not even from my own groups (Scot-Irish -- Haggis anyone? Corned beef and cabbage? ueeechh!) -- then corrected myself, I do eat Italian, but Rosa doesn't like spaghetti. Then it's time for the kiddie games and, The Pinata. All the kids took a turn, even Laura got in a few good whacks, but it took a while to pop it open. Then it was pin the tail on the donkey, Bill -- can you help with this? 25 Kids all clustered around when I'm trying to get the players heading for the poster. Finally the organized (?) games ended, and the kids went back to running wild. I was standing there, bopping along with the music, when Victor's wife, Macariah, comes over to me and asks me if I dance. I was stunned -- I thought she had been watching me earlier, but I'm prone to delusions -- I haven't been asked to dance in years. I told her that watching me dance was too much like that one Saturday Night Live sketch where Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze are trying out for Chippendales, but thanks anyway. We finally pry Laura away from the other kids, and head back for the night.
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