Indiana State Fair 2010

This year at the state fair was "the year of the big." At least that's my version. The technical version was "the year of the pig." There was a huge (25 feet) sculpture of the famous "American Gothic" by Grant Wood. I thought this was pretty awesome. This year we bought $15 unlimited ride wrist bands for the kids. Best $30 we spent at the fair. They totally got their money's worth. This was their favorite "ride." It's actually just a giant slide. I couldn't even begin to count how many times--in a row--they did that thing.

The "bee ride."

This was an "Indiana Jones" obstacle course. The first time through, K got scared and we thought we were going to have to go after her. But big brother C came through and helped her out. Sometimes................

C was more than willing to sit with this bear and pretend he was scared. K was not so willing. So Daddy sat with her. He's scared; she's sucking her thumb. (at least Daddy wasn't sucking his thumb)

This was a huge sand castle. Again--the year of "the big."

This entire thing was made of cheese! That's a lot of cheese. K would have been in heaven.

The kids loved these horses! C's horse actually "cried" (aka: whinnied) when C left. So cute. But I'll take a dog; thank you very much. Not a horse.
Isn't Ham cute? All made out of cans. Oh the patience of the people who made this!

A huge! pumpkin carved to match the "Gothic" people.

The over sized cow and container of ice cream.

Not sure why C wanted to take his glasses off. And I love how K's face is all scrunched up.

2009 Indiana State Fair

Monday we went to the state fair. It was another hot day. Very hot. But we all had a good time, the kids were good, they had fun, we ate good food, and the kids got to ride rides. What more could you ask?

We got there around 10 am. We had some friends give us tickets so we didn't have to pay to get in. What a blessing! We didn't end up leaving until 5:15. K was asleep within 3 minutes of us leaving. It was a long day.

The 2 things that the kids wanted to do and talked about ALL DAY was put-put and rides. Which we didn't do until the end of the day. So we heard about it A LOT.

We looked at cows, sheep, horses, and pigs. We walked through a space exhibit. We visited an old "tyme" soda shop. We walked through a DNA exhibit. We saw a sand castle and a cheese sculpture. We ate cheesy beefstick, pizza (kids choice), milk shakes, funnel cake (it was burnt this year), and corn on the cob (only me!). And finally we played put put (K girl has no clue and C kept making up what par the hole was) and rode rides. We spend $30 on rides and they only got to ride 4. That's crazy! I can't wait til Disney when all the rides are "free."

So here is our day in pictures.

This is the entrance to the space exhibit.

This was an awesome sand "castle." Amazing.

And this is my kiddies being chickens in the "egg" chair.

This sculpture was made almost entirely out of cheese!Daddy was just amazed at this pig. It's the world's largest boar and we have never seen it standing! We each picked out something from the South Bend Chocolate company. The kids got covered Oreos, I got twice covered peanuts and Daddy got peanut butter covered malt balls.

This is K's attempt at taking pictures. Still working on that photography class for her.C actually took this picture. I think he did pretty good. There were some other really good ones while we were taking a break, but I won't post them for fear of boring you.Anyone want a combine? It's only $395,000! And that's not including the attachment on the front. It was HUGE!Here are my kids pretending to be the corn that's getting cut down. Crazy kids.
Finally playing put-put. K wasn't so good at it.

C was only a little better. At least he knew which side of the club was supposed to hit the ball.These were some crazy goats. You could pay 25 cents (we did;suckers!) to get food to feed them. See the dispenser in the bottom left? The crazy goats would see you put the money in and try to lick the food right out of the dispenser! We kept having to push them out of the way just to get the food out.K loved all the animals. She is such an animal person. We need a dog.The kids loved this "ride." It' really high and they go fast. I rode it last year; it is kinda fun.

And the bee ride. They actually went by themselves. And at the end of a long, hot day we rode the tractor one lap around the fair. What a good day!

Hendricks County Fair

For those of you who don't know, the Hendricks County Fairgrounds are right behind my house. I can see the lights of one of the parking fields through the trees around the pond. The Fair was just last week. The second night of the fair they always do fireworks. We were able to sit our back patio and watch them. They were pretty good. The finale was awesome! And we didn't even have to fight the traffic!Last Thursday we actually went to the fair. This year we decided to walk (saved the $5 parking fee). I had clocked it once; it was only about 2 miles. K girl got to ride in the stroller and C walked with me. He actually did pretty good about not complaining. Since we (me) are still on a penny-pinching kick, we decided to just get desserts instead of dinner and dessert like we usually do. The same with the rides. We'll wait and do that at the state fair. There's more choices there anyways. The kids got milkshakes and Daddy got a funnel cake. I ended up eating a little of all three.

We walked around and saw all kinds of animals and 4H projects. It was fun!We also watched a "logging demonstration" Oh dear! Those guys humor was horrible! Not off color per se, but lame! It was hot walking around but not unbearable. I can't wait for the state fair though. That ends up being almost an entire day, with lots of good food and much more to see. I'm going to count that day as a field trip for C since we will have already started school. Why not? Crazier things get counted as a school day for the public schools. That fair comes up in about a month. Stay tuned for that post.

I read in the paper later that this cow sold for over $5000 at the auction. Nice artwork, don't ya think?

Catch up

It's been a week since I've told what we've done in our "every day life." So I'll play catch-up

Saturday, August 2 C and I went to our wedding. It was very nice. Simple but pretty. Just like the bride. She had a dessert reception, which I think is so cool. Daddy worked on a wedding video that he needs to finish up soon.

Monday night Daddy had 2 games. Instead of fighting with the kids to stay clean, I let them play. Oh my goodness. They were filthy! But they had fun! I was telling a friend that I would probably have them take their clothes off for the ride home--and guess what K started doing. Oh dear. Thankfully I caught her in time. And yes they rode home almost naked. I'm thankful we didn't get pulled over and have to explain that. Needless to say the bathtub had "ring around the collar" when they were done.

Tuesday and Thursday I had 2 of the 3 kids. The older one started K5. But it was still a loud busy day. Tuesday night Daddy and I went to see the Batman movie (see other post). Thursday C and I finally got to go on our date. (see next post)

Friday we were all home and didn't do much but grill out, let the kids play outside, give the kids a bath and watch some of the Olympics. It was nice to be home.

Saturday morning, we took the kids to the park. We got breakfast at McDonald's on the way and ate it at the park. It was so nice out--almost cool. Then we played for about an hour and a half. We had such a good time.




Then once home, the kids played and Daddy tried to fix his computer (pray he can get it fixed). Daddy had another wedding that he taped Saturday. He left around 3 pm and didn't get back until almost 1 am! He was tired and his feet hurt.

Today we had church and got Hungry Howie's pizza for lunch-YUM. We did find out today at church that our Preacher has a blog--which is so funny cuz he usually is against "technology" You can check it out at http://www.pastormonte.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow we are going to the fair. Yummy fair food. And the kids want to see the cows. Should be fun!

Vacation-2

Well I'm back and it's time to get caught up. We have been very busy since the last post. But now we are home and it is nice to be home.

Let's start with last Thursday night. I was finishing up my last post, and Daddy was helping me put the pictures in the right place. Some of the kids were playing Wii, others were on the other computer, the dryer was going. All of a sudden, the room where the Wii was-started dimming but the lights in the dining room where I was were getting brighter. Then we started smelling something hot. So we all "evacuated" out to the driveway. This was almost 9:00. Aunt called Uncle (who was at home 40 minutes away) to come check what the deal was. By the time he got there it was almost 10:00. Then he did some looking and testing. Meanwhile, Aunt and Daddy entertained the kids with sidewalk chalk (more body outlines), big long words (beautiful) for C because "those (the 3 letter ones) were too easy." Around 11:30 or so, we decided it would be best if we packed up and went to Aunt's house for the rest of the night. We had to pack up Grandma's foster baby, the porta-crib, bottles, baby stuff, wet laundry, stuff for one night's stay, pillows, etc. By the time we got to Aunt's house it was almost 1:00 am. Sleeping arrangements were quickly put together (she wasn't expecting company) and we all finally got in bed around 1:30. But of course my children don't know what it means to sleep late. 8:30 and they were ready to go. We packed back up, went back to Grandma's to fully pack our stuff (we were to leave that afternoon), and then we went to Hoffman's Hot Dog Haus. The best hot dogs anywhere. Then from there, we left for my sister's house in NJ. By the way, the electrical problem was caused from a wire on the pole at the road that had rubbed through. Made for an interesting night.

We got to my sister's house Friday night just as they finished their last night of VBS. We ran to the store for a few items and then went back to her house to set up sleeping arrangements there. They don't have central air, but had a window unit for the kids room and fans for us. To me it was still hot. I am not used to heat/humidity. I could not be a FL girl again! I love my IN weather! Saturday the guys left for NY City to see a Yankees game. I will let Daddy and C tell you that story in another blog. The girls went to a nearby Amish market for lunch and I got some Sweet Lebanon Bologna. YUMMO! I could live on that stuff. I can't get it here so I always stock up when I can. Other than that, us girls didn't do much. But it was nice, cuz I didn't feel good (who has ever heard of a summer cold???). That night we moved all of us into the room with the AC and C and I shared a bed. He did good about not hogging my space. He did roll off the bed to the floor (about 3 inches) once during the night, but poor boy was so tired, I don't think he even realized it. I put him back on the bed and covered him back up. Sunday morning we went to church and both kids sat with us. They did really, really good. Especially K who never sits in church with us. She lasted all but the last 15 minutes or so. And she was quiet. We took everyone out for lunch after church (Ruby Tuesday's has the best salad bar) and then went to see Toree's grave. We stopped to get some flowers for C to put there. Daddy took him in and let him pick. His first choice was a cactus, but Daddy steered him in the right direction-miniature white roses.

After we said good-bye to my sister, we headed onto GiGi's house (my Grandma) in PA. We spent one night there. Just like at Daddy's Grandma's house, there wasn't much for the kids to do and I was worried that they would get bored. Well, K found a tin box full of old wooden beads. They were about 1/2 inch long, different shapes and colors. Those 2 kids spent at least an hour and a half playing with those beads! Goes to show you that you don't need TV! The next morning, the first thing C wanted to do was play "bowling with the beads with GiGi." Too cute!




We took GiGi to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and after we dropped her back home, we headed home. It was only 9 hours, but seemed like forever. I was soooo ready to be home! I think it was because I didn't feel good the last few days of vacation.

Tuesday Daddy still had off-which was nice. We unpacked, started laundry and went to Wal-Mart (all we had in the fridge was tortillas and Gatorade). Tuesday night we went to the 4H fair which is right behind our house. We got some good fair food and walked around. K loved the cows! She kept yelling, "Daddy, yook, cow!" We got to see a brand new calf (6 hours old) trying to learn to eat. We got to pet some horses and see a HUGE bunny. We also watched a fire fighter demonstration and C got to crawl out of the "burning" building. He did very good at "stay low and crawl" I mean, he was low--army style. He was not getting in that smoke. It was a nice ending to a wonderful vacation. But boy "There is no place like home."