A place that my parent’s said my aunt introduced them to was Joe T. Garcias. I’m not sure you’ll find better. Ok, you might, I won’t argue with you there, but this is FABULOUS Mexican Food… I’m telling you!
It’s located down near the stockyards, in fact through the tree clearings you can actually see the Stockyards. Anyway the best way I know how to tell you to find it, head on the main drag, look for the Joe T’s billboard painted on the side of a building, drive a couple blocks and bam, you’re there. 🙂
Now one of the great things about Joe T’s is the seating. Obviously if it is cold or rainy you sit inside, however when it’s nice out, they have outdoor seating. Their outdoor garden is BEAUTIFUL. We planned on sitting there this particular night but at that time, they weren’t seating outside. I’m not sure if it was too early or if it was because it was misting. Every year we eat here, even last year when it was below freezing, we’ve sat outside because it’s soooo much prettier.
Use to, the ritual was to eat there on Sunday mornings for brunch. That was back when the Open NCHA finals were on Sunday evening. A couple years ago, they changed up the Futurity events and we wound up going to Joe T. Garcia’s in the evening. Their brunch was good, but once you go dinner, you never go back :).
Friday brought a start to our day bright and early. The Open Semi Finals started at 8am. Now truthfully that means they bring the cattle in at 8am to be settled, and the actual show starts about 45 minutes later give or take. We missed the first horse. Not bad, right?
During intermissions they have a huge trade show set up with Cowboy Tack, Gifts galore, trailers, trucks, anything you could think of pretty much. We actually walked through the Horse Bus. I meant to get a photo of the horse stall portion, however I forgot :(. It was a pretty steep incline to take your horses up though! But you have your horses and living quarters all in one. Now you’ll just have to tow a car behind you so you can get around in the city :).
It even had a nice flat screen tv where you could sit outside, enjoy the night air and watch tele.
Inside the trade show they have the automatic horse/cow simulation. You climb up on the horse and you get the general feel of what it is like to show a cutting horse. I’ve heard from a lot of people it’s a really cool experience, even if you’ve grown up showing cutting horses.
Well hello there 🙂
This was a quilt they had set up. So awesome, I want one!!
I thought with that saddle pad flipped upside down on that saddle it looked like an English Saddle.
The Open semi’s were awesome. Sadly a bunch of good horses just weren’t having the luck on their side and didn’t make it back to the finals on Saturday evening, but a lot of good horses did. It took a 215 to make it back to the Finals and they took the top 25+ ties which wound us up with 30 horses in the Open finals.
Bamacat ridden by Austin Shepard set the bar high with a Semi Finals score of 224
followed closely by
High Brow Jackson ridden by Monte Buntin who scored a 221.5. The speculation was High Brow Jackson was the horse to watch and not only did High Brow Jackson have a story to be told, so did Monte.
Hi Ho Nabisco ridden by Grant Setnicka came in 3rd place going into the finals with a score of 220.
2012 NCHA finalists:
SF Score Horse
224.0 Bamacat
221.5 High Brow Jackson
220.0 Hi Ho Nabisco
218.0 Highrey Cat
217.5 Looks Halreycious
217.0 Autumn Boonsmal
217.0 Botero
217.0 CR Tuff Hearted Cat
217.0 Lil Catbaloo
217.0 One Gone Cat
217.0 Primary Cat
216.5 Hal Ofa Secret
216.5 Jett Setter
216.5 Kittyswood
216.5 Mo Faye Rey
216.5 Reverendquintanspoon
216.5 Travelin Smooth
216.0 Jack Boon Cat
216.0 Meradas Sly Cat
216.0 Summer Stays Here
215.5 Desire A Lil Pepto
215.5 He Bea Cat
215.5 Peptostruck
215.5 SFR Magic Doll
215.0 Compact Style
215.0 Donas Suen Boon
215.0 Ima Studio Cat
215.0 No Way In Hal
215.0 Reys Lucky Gal
215.0 Spoonful At Noon
After the Semi-finals were over, it was time to go find some grub so we headed to Joe T. Garcias down by the Stockyards.
Here’s a fuzzy view of the skyline of Ft. Worth. Best I could do with my iPhone running down the road and by running I of course mean driving :).
After dinner we headed to Central Market where I found these cute gifts. A Milk Chocolate Cowboy Santa, a Milk Chocolate regular Santa & Chocolate covered apples. Holy Cow!
As we were leaving Central Market I saw this cute sign. I so need this sign at my house!
And that boys and girls was my Friday (last week of course)
Don’t forget that tomorrow is the July-September Review Link up &&&&& I’m involved in a giveaway over on Megan’s blog! Check it out!
One of my absolute favorite things about going to Ft. Worth is all the food we get to eat that we don’t have around home. I know, but I’m a foodie so it’s ok!
So being at the Will Roger’s Coliseum for an entire day watching the show leaves you with a few options for food. Leave and lose your parking spot, which they seem to be getting harder to come by! Eat over-priced Coliseum food, which it’s not bad but still… Or walk down the road to Dos Gringos and have Tex-Mex!
Obviously as you can see we chose option 3. Besides Dos Gringos is good!
It was misting & sprinkling the day we went so I wasn’t able to get a very good shot of the outside of the building, but this sits outside the window I was sitting at. Very cool! Now they can come and do this design in my yard!! Totally love it!
Like any good Mexican or Tex-Mex grill restaurant they start you off with Chips and Salsa. What’s cool about their chips is they cover them in chili powder. It gives them just an extra kick! This particular day we got free Queso – Read below to see how!!
So last Wednesday night, I may or may not have posted this photo on Instagram. And EmmyMom may or may not have said I looked like I was up to something… My reply – a couple days vacation!!! It was 5pm and I was headed to my parents house so we could move out!
Part of the goal was to make it to Pryor to JL’s(shhhh don’t tell Tbug!!) for dinner. Hello Yummy!
Then we were back on the road headed to Ft. Worth! We made it as far as Durant and everyone was tired and sick of being in the car so we stopped in at a hotel for the evening. Btw, it was warmer at home than it was in Durant that night!
Next morning we were up and at em headed to Pilot Point, TX, for a stop at Paul Taylor’s tack store before heading on to Ft. Worth.
Hello Red River & the Texas State Line! You know, we’ve seen a bunch of the Texas state line this year, but not as much as I did when I was a little kid! I was the master traveler as a kid because we used to show horses all over Oklahoma and Texas.
When we got to Paul Taylor’s this lovely kitty followed me all around the store. I think she/he really wanted this saddle, but it really wasn’t my cup of tea! 🙂
I did manage to sweet talk my daddy into stopping at Starbucks for a sweet Holiday Treat after we left Paul Taylor’s! This was a Peppermint Mocha Frappe! mmmmm!
So we didn’t really need to be to the Will Roger’s Coliseum until 4pm on Thursday afternoon so we decided to go kill a few hours down at the Stockyards.
I so should have bought this just because it was cute! I didn’t though… I resisted the urge!
The Stockyards used to be where they shipped cattle in and out of Ft. Worth. All the stores are in old stores &/or cattle holding grounds. Now the Coliseum there at the Stockyards they still hold rodeo’s in, however they no longer use this as shipping grounds for cattle. It’s just a main attraction. The train though still runs on these tracks but for pleasure only. Someday I’ll have to ride the train just to say I’ve done it!
I think I need the red lipstick to pull this look off, what do you think?
Just a different shot of a portion of the stockyards. By this point we were walking up toward Riscky’s Steakhouse to grab a bite to eat before heading to our hotel to check in.
After we were done with lunch we headed to the hotel to check in and drop off our luggage and then headed to Will Rogers to watch the NCHA Amateur & Non Pro Finals of the 2012 NCHA Futurity.
Cutting horses are a blast if I do say so myself!
Amateur Winner – Destini Benson, on Jimmy Cracked Corn, by Widows Freckles
Amateur Reserve – Luke Barnhart, on Hal Of A Mate
Non Pro Winner – Paula Wood, on Donas Suen Boon with a 220
Non Pro Reserve – Greg Coalson, aboard Mia Browbeater, with a 219
We got back to the hotel around Midnight, ate at Jack in the Box because they have a 24 hr drive through and we all crashed for the evening.
Last week/end, you may or may not have known/realized, but I wasn’t in town. Nope, I skipped town and headed for Texas! But more on that later! First off, I have to tell you about the bestestest, mostest wonderfulest, greatest, grandest, fabulousest steak. Yup, I made all those words up :).
But truthfully this steak was FABULOUS!
Thursday we got into town a bit earlier than we needed to so we had some time to kill. What do you do when you have time to kill in Ft. Worth, well obviously you go to the Stockyards! They have bunches of cute stores to wander through and some fabulous food.
Hubby and I actually went down with my parents and when mom asked what we wanted to eat, hubby said he wanted Steak :). Isn’t he cute! I just love him, but that’s kind of off topic!
This time we chose to eat at Riscky’s Steakhouse. Now if you’ll remember when we took Tbug down to pick up Squirty with us, we ate here, so we knew the food was good but so had to go again!
When you enter you’re greeted by this beautiful bar area. There are also booths right across from the bar you just can’t see them in my photo. I think this is actually the prettier part of the restaurant though if you look at the next photo over, the other portion of the restaurant looks like store fronts like so. Still very cool. Being as though it is Christmas time they had their Christmas tree up and my picture doesn’t even do justice to this gorgeous tree.
Since Tbug told us she’d never been to Ft. Worth, on our way home from Grandbury we had to run into Central Market {it’s a must}, then hubby asked me when I was a kid, where was an iconic place to Ft. Worth that we could take her to eat.
I looked at him and said, “The Stockyards.” He wasn’t real sure my dad would want to drag the trailer down there or not so he’s like where’s another place? Um… It’s Ft. Worth… there’s tons of places to eat….
So we got in the truck from Central Market and dad asked where we wanted to go eat? I was like, um there are tons of places 🙂 So we kind of let Tbug pic. We gave her options {Steak, Mexican, Italian, etc} and then we picked a restaurant based off her suggestions.
Guess where we went… the Stockyards! She decided she wanted steak so we thought either Riscky’s Steakhouse or Cattlemen’s.
By the time we got to the Stockyards it was 11:25. At 11:30 & sometime in the afternoon, they do daily cattle drives through the street. Yup, we got there just in time for Tbug to experience that.
Then dad & hubs went to park the trailer and we decided upon Riscky’s Steakhouse for lunch.
As an add-on we ordered Calf Fries. Do you know what those are? Um… some call them Ozark Mountain Oysters, they’re also known as {sorry} Calf nuts. Yes, you fry them up and eat them, a lot like livers & gizzards, etc.
Don’t worry, she knew what she was eating. Well sort of. And she’s had them before, and her auntie told her then what they were, so she knows 🙂 She likes them :). I’m not a big fan but I ate one 🙂
After lunch we ran her around the stockyards a bit. Yup, I even caught her with her eyes shut… Go me 🙂
This is in front of the colosseum.
And inside with no tripod… 🙁 My knees did an ok job right??
I promise she isn’t standing in the middle of the road although it sure looks that way… This is where the train used to go through to load up shipments of cattle, etc. Now they’ve turned some of the old holding pens into stores.
And she was so bad we had to throw her in jail. Grandma said she was worth bailing out though… LOL 🙂
and Measuring her arms against a Texas Long Horn span.
And everyone has to have their picture with this cutie, right?
Once we left Ft. Worth we headed to Paul Taylor’s Saddle Company in Pilot Point. When we took Squirty down, we missed getting there by 15 minutes so we hauled butt to get there this time. We got slowed down a bit with the Texas Speed Way traffic, but otherwise we got there at 2:40. Still not really enough time to take in all the store, but we got to see some.
Then we headed for home. This is crossing over the Red River which is the boarder between Texas & Oklahoma.
And don’t worry, we stopped at JL’s for BBQ on the way home… I’m just sayin 🙂
And if Squirty is home, that means, she’s gonna have a baby! Yup! Our Mare got bred! Woopie!!
So we got the phone call on Easter Sunday that she passed the 24-day heartbeat check and all looked good. They knew we were picking her up after that so they gave us a call so we could make plans {something I’m horrible at… lol}
So Friday sitting at work I ran across Chell’s blog post about Oklahoma’s expected weather over the weekend…
Oh my gosh, really? We’re going to Texas. I’m not sure if you’ve looked lately but to get to Texas from Missouri, the most direct route is through Oklahoma. Oy! Luckily We go down I-44 to Big Cabin and down 69 Hwy which takes you through McAlester, Durant, etc. So we would be “bypassing” the terrible weather! (more…)
So every year when we head to Ft. Worth, it is for a reason. That reason is the NCHA Futurity. So in a nutshell, it is babies (horses) that are 3 years old and never been shown in front of a judge. The show starts right around Thanksgiving and runs until usually right around this last weekend. There are only 3 divisions, Amateur (Never won $50,000), Non-Pro (Basically you can be a professional rider but you don’t train other people’s horses, just your own), & Open (The trainers).
This big show is held at the Will Roger’s Equestrian Center there in Ft. Worth.
On Saturday’s there is this thing called Super Stallion Avenue or also known as Million Dollar Alley. Basically it is a way to promote your Stallion (the male horse to use to breed the mares) but the catch is, the stallion has to have Lifetime Earnings (LTE) of 1 Million Dollars. The way LTE is figured is not only the stallions winnings from showing, but his off-springs earnings are figured in there as well.
Sorry about the blurry picture, but some promoters go all out. They have these big booths set up, they give away free things, they cater, One year one did free drinks (alcoholic or virgin), they bring the stallions in so you can see them (and boy do they sparkle and shine), They give you cards that show the write up about that particular horse, etc. They go all out basically!
Unfortunately I can’t remember which stud this was, but they made his own pillow for his booth. I got silly glare.
One of the things a few of the stallion breeding stations did was offer free breedings to a particular stud. Heck hubs and I both signed up, plus signed up dad (b/c he wouldn’t), mom (she wasn’t with us, she went shopping), my mother in law (she doesn’t own a horse, but she’d give it to her loving kids). 🙂 Then once we’d made our way through, we headed off to pick up my mom and head to the Old Stockyards.
Hubs had never been on the Will Rogers show floor, so since the show wasn’t going on, we were able to run in and see the arena from the floor.
You have no idea how exciting it was to be down there. I’ve never gotten to show here, but I have ridden around in this arena. My goal is to show here someday!
Isn’t he cute?
Yup I was there too 🙂 Nope, not my hat. It’s dad’s hat. You have to wear a hat to be on the floor, so dad gave me his hat for a few :). I left mine at home (I get bad hat hair!!)
So now that were back in Missouri it’s time to start studying for finals. I’m not going to lie I am sick of bones. So last night I was looking for every excuse not to study. When I heard a new e-mail tone from my phone. Of course I just HAD to stop studying and check it! I read the e-mail and it caught my attention so I walked in to the kitchen and asked Husband which mare we are going to have bred? He looked at me funny and said what the heck are you talking about? Me: I just won a free breeding to smoother than a cat. Hubs: How do you know that? Me: I just got an e-mail!! Hubs looked at the e-mail and I swear you would think we had just won a Million Dollars!!! So we grabbed the phone and called my dad and went through the same thing with him! However I don’t really think it totally sunk in because about 10 minutes later we got a call from him saying… “I was just thinking about that phone call and that’s GREAT!!!” You can use ANY Mare on my place… that’s GREAT!! We were all floating on cloud 9!! And I had to go back to studying the bones… but who can study after news like that!!!!!
Isn’t He Gorgeous?
Picture courtesy of http://www.smootherthanacat.com/site.htm
So Friday morning hubs and I had to be up bright and early to hop on a plane to head to Ft. Worth. Hey we got 2 tickets for $5 (taxes)… um… I can’t drive there for that! And my parents ROCK! Dad flies a lot and has frequent flyer miles so it works!
So this is how our Friday morning went at my house….
4:45am the alarm goes off
Hubs: Honey, you need to wake up
Hubs:{about a min later} Honey, you need to wake up
Hubs: {about a min later} Honey, you need to wake up
Me: Don’t say that again! Hubs gets up and leaves the room I roll over, Grab my phone, look at the time, ah 5 mins and I roll back over and close my eyes. A few minutes later Hubs walks back in the room, Honey you need to get up.
Me: I have 4 minutes.
Hubs: 4 minutes until what?
Me: 5
Hubs: No, you have a minute. I roll over, check my phone, I have 2 minutes and I roll back over and close my eyes.
I’ll have you know, I got up at 5 🙂 and I was ready to go when he wanted to leave at 5:30 🙂
Now I’ll bet I was a cute sight walking through airport security. I usually forget to take my belt buckle off at security and set off the alarms so I packed it up and sent it with my parents in our luggage. I decided to wear my jeans I can’t wear a belt with because of all the pretty doo-dads they have on the waist line… then I realized the silver brads would set off the security alarms so I went through in my shirt (black and really cute), my brown sleep shorts, my tall boot cut socks and my cowboy boots plus my big furry coat. Yes I was quite the sight! no sorry no pictures were taken….
And don’t worry, I sent my jeans through on the conveyor belt with my boots and then changed in the bathroom once I got past the metal detector!
Hey
Hey you
Hey you in there
You
I’m talking to you
Hey
Hey
Hey you
Hey
Hey
……..
……
……..
……
Hi
Think that annoying Stew commercial on TBS 🙂 (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, youtube it, I’m sure it’s out there!)
So did you miss me? Oh you didn’t know I was missing, other than I hadn’t been by to comment on your blogs…. Well, that’s because I pre-scheduled posts for all last week while I was on vacation.
For multiple reasons I was asked not to announce it on my blog until after I got back, so I did as I was asked. Don’t worry I’ll get caught up on all your blogs, I promise, it just might take me a bit. I have to get caught up on lots of things.
So I have 2,500ish photos from this trip, don’t worry I won’t share them all with you, however I’ll go through and share some of the highlights as I get through them myself 🙂 What’s really funny is my digital photo frame at work has just over 2000 photos and I told one of my co-workers I’d probably come back with every bit of that and I guess I didn’t disappoint. I took 3 camera’s, my Nikon D5000 with a 32gb memory card, my Kodak water camera with a 16gb memory card and my Nikon Coolpix with a 2gb memory card plus I had my iPhone, hubby’s iPhone and even my mom’s iPhone which I used all of the above at one point or another. I know, I guess I need a life maybe ;).
Anyway it’s Monday so I wanted to participate in the Hunk of Meat Monday so here’s my recipe. Mom made it a week ago Friday and that’s what we had before we left for Hawaii (if you didn’t get it by my sweatshirt)
You had to go back and look at the sweatshirt didn’t cha?
So on with Hunk of Meat Monday brought to you by Beyer Beware:
Crock-Pot Spare Ribs
Ingredients:
Boneless Beef ribs covered in Chili Lime Rub (all sides). Place in the crockpot. Then cover in enough beef broth to just cover (about 3/4-1cup). She also added some Rotel and mushrooms (both optional). Let it simmer all day on low. Then pull the meat out after 6-8 hrs and let the meat rest. In the mean time thicken up the sauce with some cornstarch to make a gravy. Then mom made mashed potatoes. So to serve, place a couple slices of bread on a plate. Shred the meat and place on the bread. Then serve with potatoes and cover all with gravy. Can we say YUM!!??!!??
