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.