Meet "Flat Maddi"

We had a visitor last week! A life-sized Flat Maddi! Maddi is our niece and her 2nd grade class read the story of Flat Stanley. If you've never heard of him he is super flat and his mom mails him to visit different places in the US to learn new things. We were pretty tickled to have "Flat Maddi" come learn about Fort Worth. As you can see we took her to the Fort Worth Stockyards where she got to ride a horse and watch a cattle drive. (The cowboy pictured above shocked us when we asked if he would take his picture with her. He was really excited because he knew exactly what it was and had taken lots of pictures with Flat Stanleys. It was so sweet of him to humor us.) We hope she had a good time, we sent her back to Boise yesterday.
The historic stockyards was a place where cattle were gathered and then driven up the "Old Chisolm Trail" to the railroads. Its a really fun place to visit as they do a mock cattle drive twice a day and they also have a rodeo and wild west show every weekend.

This is Big Jake. Yes, he is saddled. And yes, Jared decided he wanted to ride him. I couldn't stop laughing. Definitely the highlight of the trip.






Oh, and we finally did get to try those fried pickles. I wasn't a fan...too salty.

the coolest thing i've ever done

Have you ever pet a zebra? Or had a giraffe's long, black tongue lick your hand? We have :)
We went to the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glenrose, TX. It's a wildlife preserve with thousands of acres and lots of exotic animals. It really was the coolest thing I've ever done. You drive around in your car and the animals come up to your window for food.
They also had cheetahs and rhinos in pens.


A giraffe's nose is sooo soft!




This zebra was my buddy and followed the car for quite a ways.


I was a little worried the deer antlers were going to scratch the car.
Wildebeast. Ugly creatures. The one video of the ostrich is pretty funny. He was not shy at all and he would get right in my face. I was scared he was going to peck my eyes out!