Carly goes to Nationals

 It was Carly's goal to make it to high school national finals rodeo this year. We even planned her summer job and which youth conference session she went to in hopes she would qualify for nationals, and she did! She qualified in goat tying, so we headed to Rock Springs, Wyoming.

We loaded her horse, Nashville, and we volunteered to take Allie McCollister and her horse, Willow. We stopped in Idaho Falls on the way down. Then we went to Rock Springs and got checked in.

The first night they let the goat tying girls tie down all of the goats that were going to be used at the rodeo.

We stayed with Amanda (Jensen) and Carey Larsen who live in Rock Springs really close to the fairgrounds. Austin coached Amanda in basketball at Mountain Crest 17 years ago. We went to Sacrament Meeting with them on Sunday, and they fed us a delicious Sunday dinner.

Then we watched the rodeo performances each morning and night. Carly's draw was to compete Tuesday night and Thursday morning. Her first run she was a 8.71. Her second run she was a 8.71. They were both solid runs but not as fast as she hoped. She ended up 47th overall. 

Hanna, James and Paisley came on Wednesday night so they could watch Carly's Thursday morning run. It was so fun to see them. Paisley is fun. Jill had wanted to come but decided not to since Larsen had to work and she didn't want to come on her own with two kids, especially since Charlotte doesn't take a bottle so Jill would have to stop to feed her every couple hours. They cheered Carly on from home watching on the Cowboy Channel.

On Tuesday afternoon, Carly played on the Alberta team at the volleyball tournament. They had 30 kids show up so she only got to play for a couple minutes. They beat Georgia and lost to Alabama, but it was fun.

On Wednesday afternoon, we went to Green River to play in the river. It was fun even though it rained while we were there.

On Thursday afternoon, Carly entered a rodeo triathlon where you rope a calf, barrel race and then tie a goat. It was fun to watch. She missed her calf and Nashville wasn't too sure about barrel racing, but she did good.

Some memories made:

-Austin always parked so far away wherever and would say that he didn't want to get trapped in. But I also did the same thing when I was the driver. Trucks aren't as easy to park. Then when James and Hanna came in their car, James parked in the second row at the rodeo, and their car actually got trapped in. Someone parked on both ends of their car. Luckily they still could get out.

-Carey, Sydney and Bridger Larsen (the people we stayed with) came to watch the rodeo on Tuesday night. They rode their little motorcycle with their cowboy hats and cowboy boots. When they were getting ready to come, they asked Bridger if he wanted a jacket. He said, no, cowboys don't wear jackets.

-On the way down at the US border, we had to go in to take our horse health papers. The border agent lady said she wouldn't make copies because she is not Kinko's (it used to be a store that made copies). We started driving but had to turn around because we had to have copies of the horse papers in order to check in at the rodeo. We had to tell her how sorry we were that we didn't bring more copies and thank her over and over. Just make the dang copies, please.

-Carly volunteered to pray at the start of a performance. She prayed at the Reining/Cow Horse arena on Monday morning and at the Cutting arena on Wednesday morning. After her prayer on Wednesday, the announcer asked if she was LDS. She said yes. He said do you know how I know? She said because you are too? He said, yes he had been a bishop and a seminary teacher. She did a great job.

-This is our third time at nationals. Jill went in 2016 and Hanna in 2019. Each time we loved to get lemonade from Roy's Lemonade stand. In 2019 we took a picture with Roy. So this time we did get Roy's lemonade several times, and I wanted to get a picture with him again. So we did, and we learned that he has been selling lemonade for 31 years and that he is 81 years old.

-We did some shopping while we were there. Austin needs a new school belt, but he wouldn't buy a $14 belt and said he didn't need on, but the next day he spent $430 on new ropes. Priorities.

-Austin kept telling Carly that making it to nationals was the icing on the cake, and to just go out and do your best. Then when she did her run, it wasn't quite as fast as she had hoped. So I wondered what he said when she came out. They did talk about how she could have run down a little faster and flanked a little faster. Then when they got back to the trailer, he told her to sit down. Then he said, look around, and notice what you see, what you smell, what you feel. You made it here. Take it in and enjoy it. Then he told her that he believes in her. If he didn't, he wouldn't have brought her to nationals. So believe in yourself.