Wristband Night

Saturday night at the end of County Fair week in July, I took the kids to the fair rides for $10 wristband night--buy a wristband and ride everything as much as you want. Pris came along to help me, but as soon as we got down to the fairgrounds, Samson started screaming. The roar of the stock races scared him, so Pris walked him home and I stayed with the other four. Luckily Samson was already taking bottles to supplement breastfeeding, so I got to stay the whole night at the fair with my other four. This was the first time I got to ride rides because I wasn't pregnant or holding a baby! We all had so much fun!

Flying Animals!

Tractors and Cars

Thora was uncertain about everything at first, given that this is really her first year of this, but she figured it out and rode everything (big rides, too!) with all of us.

Spinning cups

Thora was my little buddy, snuggling up to me on every ride while the other three picked people in line to be their ride buddies. We eventually found Cole and Campbell, Katie's favorite people in the world, and then went around and rode everything with them. My big three paired off with C & C in different arrangements every time, but Thora stayed with me.

Carousel

Tommy knows Tony from the library. Tom and Katie think it's so cool that his name is Tony. You know, like Tony Stark!

Flying Animals again, but this time Dancy got to be in control of raising and lowering the turtle. And "Uncle" Tim was running the ride (in the red shirt).

Ferris Wheel!

So cool to watch the racecars from the top of the Ferris Wheel!

At the very end of the night (we were there from 5:30-10!), Thora finally consented to ride a ride with Cole, but only because he demanded a turn with her :) She was amazing to ride the Scrambler, Tilt-a-Whirl, Spider, and roller coaster!

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Concluding our fair week: After a late, late night Saturday, the kids and I drove to Lexington to go to church there while waiting for Shad to arrive from Iowa. Pris went to our normal church and then went home to Nebraska afterwards. Saturday night, or rather, at 3 am Sunday morning, my cousin Scott and his family arrived at my house from Utah. They failed to find any hotels to stay at in Colorado, so they drove through to stay with us.

In the afternoon, all the kids played outside. Three-year-old William had a bit of a rough time. He had an accident in his pants because he couldn't get back inside to go to the bathroom. When he finally did get in, he went into the bathroom, and...several minutes later we found him like this.

And our fish finally died. Formerly known as Rainbow Dash (when owned by Haddie), Jupiter Pluto is no longer playing dead, but actually dead. We had a fish funeral Monday morning.

RAGBRAI

This will be relatively short because I wasn't there. Shad should be writing this, but I'm the one who does the blogging. RAGBRAI is Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, and has been in existence since 1973...or something like that. It's a pretty big deal--some 20,000 riders, plus vendors, entertainment, support stations, etc, total at over 30,000 participants. Shad's brother Dan and a group of his Air Force friends have been riding it for 7 or 8 years as Team Fearless Wiener, and Shad wanted to join them this year. The Fearless Wieners joined forces with Team Bat this year, so they share the Bat Bus.

Crowds at the beginning.

Shad and Dan

Shad got tattooed VIRGIN because it was his first time. He's standing in front of one of the houses they stayed at. They had places to stay every night, whether camped on someone's lawn or property at a mechanic shop, or actually inside a house with a shower.

Here's a rundown of the numbers: Sunday--50 miles. Monday--75 miles. Tuesday--58.5 miles. Wednesday--65 miles with optional 32 mile route to make 100 miles. Thursday--51.5 miles. Friday--68.5 miles. Saturday--50 miles. Shad did the full 100 Wednesday.

This is how they propped up their bikes.

Shad, left, with some team members. Dan in the middle.

Badges for completing the 100 mile ride!

Odometer totaling at 101.74.

Shad and Marlene after the 100. They rode the extra loop together.

Exhausted wieners after the Wednesday ride.

Out to eat.

End of the ride, Saturday. Hooray, he finished it! Biked a total of 450 miles.

Dan, Marlene and Shad at the end.

Bat Bus packed up with bikes.

And look at those fine lines!

There were some bike malfunctions and breakdowns along the way, but they all made it and survived for another year.

County Fair Week

Our saga of County Fair week starts the previous week, actually. On the Thursday before County Fair, my cousin Scott and his family came to spend the night at our house on their way driving from Cincinnati to Utah for our family reunion. The very reunion I was not attending because it was scheduled for County Fair week, the one week of the summer I refuse to travel. Friday morning after Scott's family left, we packed ourselves up to drive to Lexington, Nebraska to drop Shad off. He participated in RAGBRAI this year with his brother Dan. RAGBRAI is the original bike-across-a-state ride...in Iowa. So that will get its own post later. While waiting for the guys to arrive from Colorado, we shopped in Walmart; the kids had just received payments from me for extra chores, so they had money to spend.

Dancy bought a Doc McStuffins microphone and it is the most exciting and most contested thing in her life, and Thora's as well. She is wearing the hat that Dan gave her in Lexington.

I love her little dance!

She had the most fun ever singing that nonstop for hours all night and the next day, and the next day. Pris was at our house Friday when we got home from Lexington. She stayed with us Friday through Sunday the full week that Shad was gone. Without her, I probably would have been functionally useless, unable to take the kids to anything at the fair, or feed them (because they all seem to need me the moment I say I'm going to cook). And I also started to have trouble breastfeeding Samson that week, so she was great emotional support.

I had Sister Atkins and Sister Draney over for dinner and games on Monday, the only time we got to do games. And Sister Atkins transferred on Thursday...or whatever day they do transfers now.

We had lots of fun mornings seeing the animals--we watched equestrian events and visited the small livestock (chickens, guinea fowl, ducks, rabbits, etc) and the large livestock (cows, goats, sheep, pigs). We also looked at everything in the 4-H building: garden foods, baked goods, crafts, photography, art, etc.

The kids missed Shad a lot. Before he left, Shad told Katie that she could wear a shirt of his to help her not miss him as much. She forgot until he called us Wednesday night after his 100 mile ride. She quickly ran up to my room and grabbed a shirt out of the closet.

One evening when we were finishing a walk, I wanted to take Pris and the kids to see a huge garden (okay, this thing is several land plots behind my house, possibly an acre) our neighbor Louis has. Louis was out there and we chatted and he offered us a gallon of jalapeno garlic dill refrigerator pickles. He packs some 50-70 gallons a year. I forget exactly. Samson had his first pickle and just kept eating it. No recoil at the taste. Tommy hadn't minded it when he was a baby, either.

And what better to do after a walk and pickles than to have a water fight?

These pictures uploaded all screwy and won't let me fix the order, position, or write where I want to, and I quit trying. But we went on many evening walks and had many little smiles.

The kids love to race on this driveway of an empty house.

Tommy found a tree he could climb.

Another racing picture with Thora running to me after tripping. Trooper.

After reading Magic Tree House: Night of the New Magicians, Tommy was inspired to build the Eiffel Tower. The book is set in Paris, 1889, when the tower debuted.

Summer Science

People are always interested in what I do for homeschooling, especially when I say that we haven't even started any curriculum yet. We read, talk, play and explore. This summer we picked off my Science board on Pinterest and had loads of fun. Simple activity: pour baking soda into a cake pan (or a high chair tray), dye white vinegar. Simple, easy, cheap. I already had the droppers.

Little scientist at work! Or play :)

Thora tried eating the baking soda. She didn't like it at all, but that still didn't stop her from trying it about 5 more times.

When Dancy was done, I had fun pouring the vinegar out into her pan.

Tom and Katie got artistic with their pans. Tommy made a moonscape.

Katie made a volcano.

* * *

Science activity #2: Magnifying glasses.

Inspired by Sid the Science Kid on Netflix, I bought the kids magnifying glasses at Dollar General. Hooray for $1 science tools, because that's all they need at this age. We can invest in higher quality items later.

And then we took them with us for a walk to the library. Oh, the wonders they found magnifying everything along the way, as well as inside the library! On the way home, we collected things for them to bring to the table to continue being scientists while I made lunch.

And when they had questions, they asked questions. And if I didn't have answers, we googled them.