The Fair, the Tail End of Ike, and the First Day of School

It has been way too long since I last updated my blog, but you will see in these next few updates that I have some good excuses. The first good excuse is that my computer died, complete with banshee like wailing.

The first big event to write about is our yearly pilgrimage to the Wayne County Fair. "Why is the county fair a big deal?" you might ask. You are obviously not from Wayne County if you ask such a question. The fair is the single biggest event of the year. Everyone and their third-cousin-once-removed is at the fair. When I taught, I didn't even bother introducing new concepts that week because more than half my class was out the entire week even if they were only showing their steer on Tuesday afternoon. 

This was Colin's first fair, and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. At this age, the fair is all about the animals. We spent the bulk of our time wandering through the barns. Colin did his best to imitate the animal sounds which all resembled his dog sound, "Bouff, bouff." Riley, as the big sister, felt the need to educate him on the finer points of animal mimicking. "No, Colin, the sheep says 'Baaaaa' not 'Woof.'" She eventually gave up and asked to go on the rides. 

This was the first year that Riley got to try out any of the rides. When I was a kid, my brother and I were never allowed to ride any of the rides at the fair. Our parents were convinced we'd be killed when the hastily erected amusements would shed a bolt or two and fling us into oblivion. When we got a little older, our grandparents took us to the fair and permitted us to ride whatever we wanted as well as eat every deep fried delicacy and sugar coated concoction imaginable. It was with these fond memories that I sent my daughter off to ride her first "spin-and-pukes." She had been very enthusiastic about riding the kiddie coaster until she heard some children screaming on it and declared it, "too loud." Instead, she chose the SUVs, the Batman planes, and the Jr. ferris wheel. 

I'm sure this ride will one day be replaced with hybrids.

Colin was pretty excited about the fair fries. So was I for that matter.

You might think that Ohio is a pretty safe place to live when it comes to natural disasters. We have the occasional tornado and flood, but it's not like we live in California where you're just asking for your home to be destroyed by wildfires, earthquakes, tsunamis, or Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's why I was surprised when the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through Orrville and turned our front yard from full to partial shade. Our property is surrounded by six maple trees that were probably planted over a hundred years ago when the house was built. Every one of them lost major branches. Jeff and our buddy Mike took care of the clean up. I'm thinking of getting Jeff a chainsaw for Christmas.

Orrville or the jungle?

Two days after the storm, Riley started preschool. She's been talking about this for months. Every time we'd drive past the church, she'd exclaim, "There's my school!" She enjoyed discussing all the activities she was anticipating. On the first day of school, she changed her tune. I had to pry her off my leg at the door. When I picked her up two hours later, she seemed to have recovered and was full of stories about her morning. Painting is definitely one of her favorite activities. I love that her teachers label the paintings so I can say things like, "Wow, I really love this purple cloud you painted!" because at this point, the paintings all look rather similar. I think of this as her Jackson Pollock phase. 

Here's my little baby all ready for her first day of preschool.

Stay tuned for the second installment of "What we've been doing for the past two months."