Fair

Once upon a time, Emily and I took both boys to the fair.  We met with my brother and sister-in-law and their adorable baby, Parker.  We saw the baby piglets and baby cows in the 4-H building, we made turkey callers out of dixie cups and cocktail straws...but alas did not get the turkeys' attention and Nate had a mutant ninja turtle painted on his cheek.  Nate made a chia-head out of stockings and wheat grass seeds.  LJ had his hand painted with his on-again-off-again favorite, Elmo.  Parker promptly fell asleep in his stroller.

And then there were the rides.  Emily took Nate on a super fun ride.  She also took LJ on the aptly-named ride, Wiggle Wurm.  Emily is a such a wonderful caregiver.  She takes such good care of our family.  We have been blessed with her selfless acts of service, listening ear and she seems to always look outside her own needs to help out with the boys.  Case in point, promptly after the above ride with Nate, it was Emily who looked green and a little woozie; not Nate as we had expected.
 
And then there was the food.  Emily tried a giant turkey leg.  It could have fed a couple Vikings.  She walked around with it, brought the leftovers on the car ride and it still isn't finished as of today.  Nate cooled off with an Italian ice- sweetened with a most unnatural, artificially colored sugar water.  LJ got to try out a terriyaki chicken on a stick and some lemonade (one of his favorites!).  We narrowly avoided the fried butter, thank goodness.  Although I hear it is tasty. In hindsight maybe that would help LJ gain some much needed weight!

LJ getting Uncle Dan to escort/protect us through the fairgrounds

In lieu of cotton candy, Nate decided he wanted to play the ping-pong-in-a-fish-bowl game. No duck pond games for him. Lucky him!  We were guaranteed by the carnie that he would win something. Well, so no giant banana plush toy as a prize. It appeared to me that the lip of the bowl was too small to fit their ping pong balls, so we were the proud new owners of a consolation prize:  three betta fish.  Thank you very much (can you hear the sarcasm here).  And this is when it is not the story you think it is.  He fretted over them, naming each one Superman, Batman and Evil Robot.  He insisted that we needed to buy them a bigger tank other than the fish bowl we had. We settled for aquarium rainbow gravel.  He woke me up the first morning at 6am!@#$#$%% asking if it was time for him to feed them again.  Within the first 24 hours, two out of the three fish have gone on to better seas.  Nate was greatly saddened by this event & he may need therapy when he's older.

Hi Uncle Dan and Aunt Anne! We miss you and baby Parker.