What time is it for the love of pete?

Is it really July 26?

Where, oh, where has the time gone for the last 8 days.

That's when the fair began for us...8 days ago, and with the lack of sleep, it's all run together into one big blob.

We have two children slightly upset about two different things.

Evan will miss his pigs (the one who won for him slightly more than the other...)

Grace will miss the socializing...

They each showed well...gaining more experience each year.

Rides were ridden on wristband day

fair food was eaten, and Brent worked extremely hard all week as a first year advisory member of the club.

We had a good run.  

Today is the auction, and the animals at the fair all leave the fair tonight.

We come back tomorrow to work at the pork producer's booth, and get a free meal.  We do it with friends, so it's alot of fun!

So, two more days...then we'll have a breather till next year.  

It is the fun fair after all, right.

right?

Just a normal day right?

We're gearing up for the fair, and by gearing up, I mean getting ready for the 9 most intense days we'll have all summer.

We'll get up early, and go to bed late.  I'll wash loads of clothes everyday that smell like pig, because we've been at the fair all day.

I'll pack lunches every night at 11:30 so that we're not spending a fortune on food each day of the fair.

We will scurry to find clothes for the next day, and show clothes for the day after that.

The kids are PUMPED to hang out with their friends, ride rides, and just be kids.  Oh, and maybe take care of their pigs, and show them since that's why we go to the fair in the first place!

So, yesterday, we took care of some business.  We had to.  The fair allows for no time doing anything else.

I picked up my apples from the amish neighbor

in anticipation of doing applesauce in the afternoon.  My "appliances, boxes, sugar, cinnamon, etc. were already set up waiting for the chore.

I went to the bank, got gas, headed to pick up Grace from a sleepover, and came home for lunch and for her to get ready for her orthodontist appointment.

Once she was ready, we headed to town, had the appointment, dropped off things at the library, and got some new ones...

Then we took a donation to Goodwill, shopped a little, stopped for cokes at McDonalds, headed to Walmart for some last minute fair supplies, and apparently some goofing off...

Once done there, we went to visit my Grandpa in the nursing home, and then went home to make supper,

and start the applesauce.  The kids and I worked on the sauce for 4 1/2 hours, minus Brent taking Evan to help get our load of hay for the sheep.

Grace and I worked like crazy, laughed out loud many times, listened to music at full blast, and waited for the boys to get home, and the pile of apples to shrink.

At 11pm, I called it a night.  We had put all the applesauce in the freezer, I had cleaned up, and I went to sit down on the couch.

Whew.

Getting ready, or not since it's in the high 90's today, to set up our showbox, fans, and feeders at the fair tonight.  We take the pigs in at 7:30 am tomorrow.

Wish us luck!  We're gonna need it!

Make myself sick

If I start to think about how fast this summer break has went, I'll make myself sick.

I mean, our fair starts next Friday.  That means we set up our showbox, fans, etc. next Thurs. night!

Once the 9 day fair is over, summer is down hill from there!  It's true people!

We haven't had many days since the beginning of June where we could just stay home and veg out.

We always have somewhere to go, whether it's to get groceries, take our things back to the library, 4-h meetings, small vacations here and there, family from out of state, youth trips, etc.

Tomorrow we have NOWHERE to go.  I want to get the kids school scrapbooks finished, or at least up to the point that I'm ready for this year.  I've procrastinated too long.

I NEED to get them done, just to say I actually accomplished something this summer break.

So, without further ado, here are snippets of our life this week.  Unfortunately, most have involved being stuck in traffic!  Ugh!

Getting my instagram pictures printed like mini polaroids!  Cool!

Watching storms roll in.

Finding Oreo in the craziest of places.

Great finds at the library this week.

Does summer, heck this whole past year, seem to have flown by because my kids are older?

I can't quite figure it out.  But I wish it would stop turning so quickly.

Hope your week/summer have been at just the right pace.

Tiny Getaway

It was Grace's idea to go to the beach.

Since I take the kid's pictures myself, she wanted a "beach theme" for hers.

We decided to head to South Haven, MI to the great pier and beach.

We haven't been there for a year, so it was time to go.

It ended up being a great day weather-wise.

On the way up, we stopped and got some peaches, plums, and lunch.

The pictures turned out ok, it was VERY windy, so she's since decided to have them taken at another location, but I'll share what I got anyway.

A little tweaking

My cousin and I are headed to our local flea market tomorrow for the next three days.

It's our turn to sell our crafts again.

Last time didn't go so well since it rained/poured the three days we were there over Memorial Day weekend.

We'll give it a go this time, and hope it goes better.

I've been working on some new things, and I took some stuff out of my Etsy shop, and replaced them with some new things.

I added these things to the store this morning.

Thanks for looking!