Fun Times At The County Fair.

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I have a love/hate relationship with the county fair. The love comes from fond memories of the fair as a little girl, and the hate comes from the harsh reality of present day madness. I remember going to the fair as a little girl and loving every sight, sound, and event that took place. Back then, ride tickets were a quarter, cotton candy was $1.00 and we always ate at the taco booth manned by our church. Back then, my parents could take all ten of us kids and have a grand time even on a very tight budget. Back then, times were more simple. Then as I got older, I loved walking through all the buildings and gathering up candy, fans, popcorn, pens, pencils, trinkets, plastic crosses, note pads, hundreds of business cards, and whatever else was being given away for free. Ride tickets slowly increased to 3/1.00, and cotton candy became $2.00, yet, it was still reasonable. But somehow over the years, insanity has run rampant and my love for the family fair tradition has been turned into downright disgust. Present day ride ticket prices are $1.00 each. Now, that doesn't sound too awful bad, I mean, we have to expect inflation. However, when you consider that it now takes upwards of 3 tickets to ride one ride, simple math dictates that I am spending $3.00 for a 2 minute whirl in the air. Give me a break! And, don't even get me started on the $5.00 cotton candy. But, the thing that sends me completely over the edge and off my rocker is the endless row of GAMES. If there is one thing I despise in the whole world, it is carnie games. Huge stuffed monkeys, giraffes, teddy bears, you name it....all dangling strategically just out of reach. You think that with one pop of a balloon, two knocked over milk bottles, three rings tossed perfectly, an exact guess of your throwing speed, you will be able to win one of those prizes. But no, you get to choose a plastic seahorse necklace made in china.....unless......you want to go one more time and upgrade...and then a few dollars more....and just one more time....and a few more dollars.............and 17 upgrades later....ding...ding...ding....you just won a giant stuffed gorilla!!! Despite the fact that you just spent $75.00 *winning* it. Now, this story has no validity. I do not play carnie games, but I see it happening and I can't stand it. I did get suckered in to letting Hunter play the shark fishing game. He fished out a small shark, and we were almost conned into 'upgrading' for 3 more dollars, but I recognized the ploy and quickly picked out a plastic trumpet and got the heck out of there. He didn't care about the toy anyway, he just wanted to fish.

All in all, we had a great time at the fair this year, all except for Hunter's emotional and physical meltdown when I told him no more games. In the slide show, I captured a picture of it. Thank goodness Kieth was there to help. I guess one day he will have to learn the hard way, when he *wins* a pair of fuzzy dice for $50.00. Oh well.

The slide show is pictures from the fair parade and the fair. As I was looking at them, I realized that most of them are of Hunter. The other boys don't like pictures too much anymore. Hunter brought his own candy bag and then sat back while people came up and filled it for him. Riley and Jordan helped him gather up candy in the street also. It was a fun time. Enjoy.

Fall is in the air.

I must say that I love fall. I love the crisp feel of the air, the turning of the leaves, the opportunity to open the windows and enjoy the weather, the smell of gingerbread, eating pumpkin pecan pie and also the Halloween and Thanksgiving holiday's. But, most of all....I love decorating for fall. As you can see, Hunter and I have been busy getting into all of my fall decorations. We are headed to Wal-mart to buy some mums for planting outside, so for now, enjoy the pictures of our home.

Summer Fun at the Lake

Because I have just started this blog I am going to back track a little and fill you in on some of our summer fun. Even though the lake levels were extremely high this year, we managed to go quite often on either our ski boat or Lesli and Tommy's pontoon. There were no shorelines to pull up to and stay the day, so we fashioned a swim area out of fun noodles and made the kids all stay in sight. Last year Hunter was a little scared of getting in the water, but this year was a whole different story. He watched his brothers jump off the boat with interest and then started out jumping into the water from the pontoon doorway, but after that was not dangerous enough, he quickly graduated to completely jumping off the back of the boat!!! As you can see, the back of the boat has a platform (which is pretty high up from the water) and he would get a running start and just jump as far as he could, eyes open and all, and land in the water. He would bob up out of the water with his eyes still open and say "that was fun, I go again". It was the funniest thing you ever saw! He absolutely exhausted himself jumping off over and over. Hunter is quite a swimmer too. He loves his Diego life jacket and knows just how to maneuver in it to swim quite fast.

Jordan surprised us this summer as well. He has always wore a life jacket until this year. He decided to take it off one day and to our surprise, he swims pretty well. He loved jumping off the back of the boat too. The boys would all have diving and jumping contests to see who could do it the best, craziest, or make the biggest splash. (Winner of biggest splash goes to Kieth) Riley and Dakota are great swimmers as well. They love to have contests to see who can swim to a certain point the fastest. They also like to wear their goggles and dive for things.

As for me, well, I am still afraid of the water. Especially after the snake incident. It happened on one of our last trips to the lake this year. Lesli and I were floating on fun noodles and visiting when we realized that we were pretty far away from the boat. Kieth, Tommy, and all the kids except for Harley (who was with us) were on the boat. Anyway, we were just talking and all of a sudden Lesli looks to her right and staring her in the face is a water snake flickering his tongue! She turns to me and yells SNAKE!! I looked over and sure enough, it was a snake swimming right next to us. At that point we both freaked out and started flailing around like wild house cats and tried to swim towards the boat. We abandoned the fun noodles and swam like we were in the Olympics (well, maybe it wasn't that graceful). We must have looked like idiots because everyone on the boat was laughing hysterically at us. We never stopped screaming until we actually reached the boat and got on. I have never swallowed so much lake water in all my life!! (That happens when you swim and scream at the same time) So much for saving a damsel in distress, by the time we reached the boat, our husbands needed CPR from laughing so much. Needless to say, this event added to my list of reasons to be scared of the lake, what with sharks, dead bodies, human-size catfish, and now anacondas!!! Thankfully, I have a full winter to stifle all my irrational fears because come next year, the kids will be ready to spend another summer at the lake!!

To Bowl or Not to Bowl??

Lesli and I always seem to get ourselves in the craziest predicaments with our hair-brained ideas. The latest occurred when we recently saw an advertisement in the newspaper for fall/winter youth bowling league sign-ups. Our children have been involved in most every sport and we have spent countless hours cheering at rainy football games, scorching hot baseball games, wet soccer games, and stuffy basketball games. Considering that our family likes to bowl occasionally, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for a new adventure. So, we get to the bowling alley on Saturday morning. The kids were fed donuts and chocolate milk and allowed to bowl for free. They were having a blast and Lesli and I could not believe that the sign-up fee was a mere $12.00 per child. We were very eager to get our paperwork completed and turn in our money. The one drawback was that we would have to get up every Saturday morning and take them to the bowling alley from 9:30-11:00. But this seemed hardly a sacrifice compared to all the fun Riley, Jordan, Sydney, and Thomas would have. After we turned in our money, Lesli came up to me and said that the lady in charge told her it would be an additional $9.00 per child each week just to bowl. We quickly calculated that it would cost us $72 a month to join this league. I knew it was too good to be true, only having to pay $12 for a fun sport!! What were we to do, we had already signed the kids up and they were having such a blast. We also learned that the league continued on until some time in April and then they started attending tournaments all around the state! What!! This is not what we signed up for. So, needless to say, in the end we sent the kids to the car with their dads and graciously asked for our money back and explained that this was more of a commitment then we bargained for. Nevertheless, the kids had fun bowling that day. My camera battery died on me mid picture taking, so you will only see Riley, Jordan, and Hunter. Also, Lesli and I have determined that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is. We have resolved to continue braving the cold bleachers and dusty fields, and stick with the sports we know and love.