Life & Family means road trips, rushed entrances, and showing up for your kids — even when the show itself is shorter than the drive.

The boys are deep into goat show life right now — jackpot shows, to be exact. Which means weekends on the road, early mornings, and a whole lot of waiting… for about five minutes of actual showing.

This weekend’s show was in Harrisburg. My mom, Jeff, and I made the two-hour trip to catch it — all five minutes of Ty’s time in the arena. Worth it? Of course.

We pulled in just before showmanship. Like, just before. Mom and I were dropped at the door, Jeff parked and we sprinted. We got to the arena just in time… only to hear that Ty didn’t really want to do showmanship anyway.

So naturally, after that Olympic-level sprint, he placed 5th out of 6.
Cool. Love that for us.

Next up was the market show — the other two and a half minutes of action. This one went a little better: 3rd out of 6 in his class, which is actually pretty solid considering how big the show was. We waited around for the division show because the top three go back in.

The goats came out.
No Ty.

So, being the very attentive show mom that I am (insert heavy sarcasm), I went looking for him. Thanks to a tip from Kobe, I found him exactly where you’d expect…

The wash rack.

When I asked why he wasn’t heading back to the arena, his answer was simple and logical:
“There’s no way a third-place goat in six different classes is going to win anything.”

Point taken. Message received. Off to report back to the group.

And just like that, it was back to the cold car and two hours home — tired, slightly amused, and fully reminded that goat showing is about a lot more than ribbons.

Side note: the milkshakes were good.