Take Me to the Fair

 

We all trotted out to the fair last night and had the best time I remember having.  We were there a little less than two hours.  We had a pretty small agenda which made the time we spent very relaxing.

First off we got a demonstration in gold panning.  This kind of stuff is has Djeryd written all over it.  He is, at this very moment, panning for gold with a cereal bowl in the backyard.

Djeryd and I both entered handiwork in the fair this year.  Djeryd built a model of the iconic van from The A-Team.  He won third place in his lot.

I just scrabbled up some things I had made over the past year or two on the sewing machine.  I entered eight items and all but two of them earned ribbons.  That is not anything to be impressed with, however, since most of the categories only had two or three competitors (or in the case of my blue-ribbon-winning flower-power capris – only one).  ;>  If you look really close in the picture above you can see a little tear running down my face.  So as cynical as I may sound, seeing my little creations up there literally brought tears to my eyes.  I am already dreaming about next year.

Erik astounded us all at the Army booth doing the push-up challenge.  This little guy did THIRTY Army-style push ups!  He tied the record for little kids.  All of the Army guys were so impressed they told him to wait while they rounded up a t-shirt.  We were ridiculously proud of Erik and bragged about him to everyone we saw for the rest of the night.

Little Miss Annabelle got her wish.  All she wanted to do was see the pigs.  Anna loves to snort (a very unladylike trait I did NOT teach her).  She wanted to go snort with the pigs.  It was hilarious.  I should have had Sean videotape it.  She would walk up to a big pig that was awake and snort at it, then wait for it to snort back at her.  Then she would snort some more at the pig and burst into giggles.  I’m sure they were telling each other little piggy jokes.  ;>

I think one of our goals for next summer will be for each of the kids to enter something in the fair.  Anna is begging for a sewing machine for Christmas so she can stitch up some “t-shirts, socks, pants, and skirts and tights”, and the boys are already coming up with new Lego designs for an impressive display in 2012. 

Oh!  And one more note to myself – the 4-H hall was amazing!  I was astounded at the work and craftsmanship produced by little fourth graders all the way up to high-schoolers.  I am definitely planning on looking into 4-H opportunities for the kids this year.

Yea for the fair!