5 Years and Running

The first road race I participated in when I moved to Houston over four years ago was the Rodeo Run.  The Rodeo Run is a 5K/10K run that starts in downtown Houston and finishes at Minute Maid Park.  The runners start off the Rodeo Parade which is a whole story in itself.

Courtesy of Rodeohouston.com

Before the rodeo begins, there are twelve trail rides with the longest being 386 miles on which over 3,000 cowboys ride into Houston on their horses and in wagons.  When they arrive in Houston on Friday they spend the night camping out in Memorial Park.  On Saturday morning, the trail riders parade through downtown Houston on their way to Reliant Stadium for the rodeo. 

This is my favorite run in Houston and I hope to do it for many more years to come!

Students from the University of Houston ready to march
in the parade wearing red boots and Texas flag shirts.

Horses and wagons in the middle of the city.

Start of the run and the parade

Ready to start our 5th Rodeo Run!

Introduce a Girl to Engineering

Introduce a Girl to Engineering day is a program where we bring in 8th grade girls from local middle schools and try to inspire them to pursue degrees in math and science.  I've been volunteering for this event the last four years and have always had a wonderful time.  It is always exciting to share what I love with young girls in the hopes that they might consider engineering as something they would love.  It is hard for me to imagine not knowing about engineers as the majority of my family is engineers but these kids come from areas where they don't have the exposure and opportunities I did growing up.

Below are the things we did this year with all 180 girls.

Listening to the opening speaker.  This is just half of the girls.

Team Challenge: Domino Boat
The girls were tasked with building a boat from tin foil,
popsicle sticks, straws and tape that would hold as many
dominoes as possible.  The winning boat held 45 dominoes!

Plastivan
This is a great demonstration on plastic and other petroleum
based projects.  Its hard to tell but the girls are sticking
skewers through the balloons without popping them.

Science on Stage by the Houston Museum of Natural Science
This woman has been doing this show for us for at least the
last four years.  She always does and excellent job and the
girls love it!  Here a girl is dipping a flower in a container
of liquid nitrogen.

We send all the girls off with a goody bag of trinkets.  This is just
one of the three schools group of girls.  It was another great year!

Round Up and Best Bites

The logo for Rodeo Uncorked which Wine
Events falls under.  This was stamped on the
Double Barrel Sampler Cases that were full of
award winning wines from our Wine Competition. 
We helped load and distribute all 576 cases
which sold for $600 a piece.

This year Derek and I joined the Wine Events Committee for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  The Wine Events Committee puts on a series of events to raise money for education and college scholarships.  The Houston Rodeo is organized and staffed by over 26,000 volunteers on over 100 committees.  Together we raise over $30 million a year through the production of the show, fundraising, auctions, and events.  Events like the Round Up and Best Bites Competition that we worked this past weekend. 

Round Up and Best Bites (RUBB) is a food and wine extravaganza!  We served over 300 wines and had 54 local restaurants serving up signature dishes.  Attendees had three hours to eat and drink as much as they can and vote on their favorites.  At the end of the night, the winning restaurants were awarded belt buckles.  There are no trophies given at the rodeo just big, shiny, ornate belt buckles.  I can't lie, I would love to get my hands on one!

My Committeeman's Badge

As part of the committee we are required to volunteer for 34 hours in order to "badge".  Badging is a big deal because it means you can attend the rodeo whenever you want and bring a guest for free.  The badge gets you into any concert, you just have to sit in an empty seat and move when and if the owner shows up.  Along with the badge we received a parking pass that allows us to park in any lot for free when we attend.  To us it seems like 34 hours is a small price to pay to come and go at the rodeo whenever we want.

We got our final hours to badge at RUBB by volunteering for 16 hours in one weekend.  It was incredibly exhausting!   We did get to try some of the food and wine during our break from emptying the dump buckets and cleaning up the cocktail tables.  This was the job they made all the Rookies do.  We got to know some really great people on the committee and we look forward to working with them again at the upcoming Wine Auction.  I accidentally erased all the pictures from my camera of us during the event so all I have are the pictures from setting up.

I thought these plates were so cool! 
It has a holder for your wine glass!

This is just half of Reliant Center where we had the event. 
In just a week this will be full of shops and livestock.

My job for setup was to drive around a golf cart full of wine
and place the cases on the specified tables.  The Junior Rodeo
Committee (kids 18-21) helped load up my cart.  I loved how
this guy was wore his hat.

Humble Rodeo

Saddle Bronc Riding

Derek and I love going to the Houston Rodeo and when we heard there was an Humble Rodeo, we decided to check it out.  They had all the usual rodeo events but the caliber of cowboys and cowgirls was not quite the same as we see in Houston.   It was still fun to watch and get in the spirit of rodeo season.

After the rodeo we watched Pat Green put on a little concert.  We wished he would have played some more of his older stuff that we used to listen to in college but it was still a good performance.

 We can't wait for the Houston Rodeo to start in a couple weeks!  20 days of rodeo fun!

Pat Green

Me and Derek

Me and Carly

Carly and Garret

Humble Rodeo BBQ Competition

On Saturday we braved the weather and went out to the Humble Rodeo BBQ Competition.  We were excited to get the opportunity to actually participate as judges.  They had four categories throughout the day: Ribs, Chicken, Brisket and Open.  The Open category was just about everything you can imagine.  We did not judge Open but a friend who did reported eating frog legs, bloody chicken, and stuffed peppers.  We wanted to stay safe so we went with Ribs and Brisket.

Each category started with 75 entries which were judged over four rounds until a winner was determined.  In the two rounds we judged there were 15 different entries we had to taste and score.  It was amazing to taste the difference between them all.  Some ribs were dry, some saucy, some smokey, some sweet, and some spicy. 

Judges for the Second Round of Ribs

It was funny to see how particular they were about the rules and procedures in judging this local BBQ competition.  There were five people to a table and you could talk about anything but the food.  You passed the containers around and each person took a bite and only one bite.  You were not allowed to go back for more, one taste was it.  After every bite you had to get a new knife and fork to make sure there was no mixing of flavors.  Before the next bite you had to eat a cracker, pickle or take a drink of water to cleanse the palate.  In the end, we had a lot of meat, pickles, and fun.

Finally finished judging!  Carly, Me, Derek, Garret, and Joey