Ido and I met on a 4th of July weekend when he was in my small hometown of Bridgeport, California, competing at a ranch rodeo.  I went to the local bar with a few friends to meet up with people we only got to see once a year at the rodeo.  Ido was sitting alone at a table and a mutual friend of ours made a bet with me that I couldn’t make him laugh–little did we know how that bet would turn out!  Looking back, it was definitely love at first sight…for me, anyway.  I think it took Ido about 10 minutes after the first sight, but he did come around and eventually moved up to my hometown. He got a job on a ranch next to my family’s, and since then, it’s been happily ever after!

My family owns a ranch just outside the tiny town of Bridgeport, California.  I once heard that Bridgeport has had the record low temperatures and the highest gas prices for the lower 48…which just goes to show you exactly why it has remained a small town even though it is in the prettiest valley on earth.  I grew up around cattle and on a horse and my love for the lifestyle has kept me here when many others my age have left.  It’s definitely not a cushy 9-5 job, but it is incredibly rewarding.  I consider myself lucky to have found someone like Ido who shares my love of the land and livestock and who fully understands what it means to married to the ranch as well as each other.

Ido has roots halfway across the world and in a country where it is highly unlikely to find a cowboy of any kind–Israel. As a kid, Ido always wanted to be a cowboy but it wasn’t easy trying to figure out how to go about it.  When he finally found a family that would take him in and teach him how, he jumped at the chance.  He is forever grateful to them and because of that connection, he is not only a wonderful man, but a dependable cowboy, excellent roper, a hand with a horse, and can read cattle like he was born into it.  Most of his family still lives in Israel, and while it is hard for me to fathom leaving my family to pursue something I love that is halfway around the world, I admire him for sticking to it even when his path was not easy. On our wedding day, a friend of mine asked where I had found such a great guy, to which another guest replied, “Well, there weren’t any left here, so she had to import him!”