And Before That...

I realized I got a little ahead of myself posting our trip to Yellowstone because before we went to Yellowstone, Mikala stayed with us for a couple of days.
The first day she was here, we went to the county fair. It's been a long standing tradition for us to go to the fair every year on kids' day. The Kiwanis Club sponsors little kiddie races and hand out cash prizes. One dollar goes to the first place winner, Seventy-five cents to second place and Fifty cents to third place. In the old days before the kiddie races drew a crowd, they would give a quarter to all of the little participants in every race. When the races are over, they hand out carnival ride passes and popsicles to everyone.

It was insanely hot that day and Ava took staying hydrated very seriously.

This is Emma waiting for her turn to dominate the crab walk race....and yes, her face was really that red. I wasn't kidding when I said "insanely hot."

Emma took first, and rightly so, check out the intensity on her face.

Grace was a far less enthusiastic crab racer and didn't place in the crab walk race for her age division. Her moment of glory came a little later in the shoe-kick competition.

Does Owen look a little unsure about the gunny-sack race?....That's because he was. He stood at the starting line at pretty much every race and then chickened out when it was actually time to race.

 

In the end, he finally competed in the shoe kick competition and won himself three shiny quarters. He was pretty proud of himself.

As for Lily, she rocked the gunny-sack race for her age division and took home a gold dollar.

Ava and Grace have a special little connection. Ava adores her, and Grace is so helpful and kind to her. I love to watch their sweet interactions....just melts my mama heart.

The popsicles after the races....

Our kids clearly love horses. We walked every aisle of the horse stalls and they admired every single horse there.....and by every single, I mean every single last horse. It took a while.

Owen could barely reach, but lucky for him, he has helpful sisters who were willing to give him a boost.

(Lily has bright orange lips from her popsicle, she rubbed it on her lips like lipstick.)

After the horses, we strolled through the sheep and goat barns, and petted a little bunny in the bunny barn.

Emma and Owen enjoyed a couple of foot long corn dogs....only one picture here because I was too busy relishing my freshly squeezed lemonade and funnel cake. At the risk of putting myself in the center of a redneck joke, I distinctively remember sitting at those grubby fairground tables and thoroughly enjoying that greasy fair food. There was slight breeze, a band playing and everyone was happy and I remember thinking that life just doesn't get much better than this. I'll admit it, I'm easy to please and maybe even borderline redneck:)



After we finished off our greasy fair food, we headed for the rides to use the kids free ride passes. I think they each got tickets to ride four rides, and that was plenty since carnie rides always make me a touch nervous.

And lastly, this is a picture taken the following day at the Relay for Life. Grace sang with a group of girls there. I missed it because I was at home frantically writing a talk for that Sunday. Chris took pictures for me though. He's awesome.