Welcome to Livlife. Where I am living my life out loud, for all to read.

Well, to cap off my extremely busy weekend, I went with Mindy and her kids to the State Fair on Monday. Papa Tom wanted a day off, so he was kind enough to let me fill in for him. Mindy's Mom and stepdad were with us as well, so the boys got to go have a day of fun with a bunch of their favorite people.

 

We started our morning at the Miracle of Birth barn. Mindy was toting 17 month old Lewie and showing him the animals, while I was squiring around 4 year old Clay. Clay doesn't have much of an attention span, he's about 2 seconds and off to see what's next. So he and I were ahead of everyone looking at things. The number of times I said "Clay hang on, let's wait for your mom to catch up" was about equal to the number of times we all had to say "Clay! Watch out!" as he wanders around looking at everything but the path in front of him.

  

                                 

 

These are pics of the boys in the Miracle of Birth barn, petting a baby bunny. Lewie is on the left, the very blond boy, just about to touch the bunny. It was the first animal he was willing to touch. He shied away from the calf, lamb, and piglet, but I guess the bunny looked more touchable. The pic on the right is Clayton (sorry, my crappy camera phone, cut off his head) actually touching the bunny. I was lucky to get the picture, as he only touched it for 2 seconds. Gotta snap 'em quick!

 

Clay and I also rode the giant slide. We both had a blast. He was giggling the whole time and like halfway down, he turned to look at me and shouted "can we do it again?" I laughed out loud, which is a fun feeling on a slide. We weren't even done yet and he wanted to do it again. We don't have pics of that, because I took the camera phone with me. Ooops.

 

Then we hiked all the way to the other corner of the fair, to visit Machinery Hill. I had told Clay they had lots of tractors there and he could climb on any one that he wanted and I wouldn't tell him "no". He loves to climb on stuff and usually someone is always telling him to get down. We finally got over there and as soon as he saw one he was tearing toward it and climbing up as fast as he could.

 

                  

 

The left one is Clay on the first big tractor he climbed. The middle one is Lewie on the same tractor. Mindy wasn't sure about his climbing skills, so she helped him out. The one on the right is the whole family in the biggest tractor we could find for Clay to climb on. They all look like they're having fun, don't they?

 

         

 

These two are of the boys on identical blue tractors, sitting side-by-side. Mindy decided Lewie could do it without her and he had a blast. He kept looking at Clay and then frantically moving the wheel, like he was "racing" his big brother. Clay got in the spirit and kept saying "I'm winning!", as only a big brother can.

 

At one point, after Clay climbed on like 20 tractors, he looked at me and said, "Remember you said I could climb on as many as I want?" Like he was afraid I would stop him. Nah, not me, I love to indulge him and I let him climb on every single tractor at the fair. Or at least it seemed like it. He would climb up and then immediately jump down; just climbing for the sake of climbing. It was pretty funny.

 

After visiting some more booths and getting Clay a free grocery bag from Norther Tool and Equipment (one of his favorite things to get...kids are weird.) we started to head out. Both the kids were losing steam pretty quickly. Lewie had missed his nap and was pretty worn out, and it was a lot of walking, even for a bundle of energy like Clay. He was getting wiped.

 

I had promised him eariler that if he was very good all day, I would buy him a present, whatever he wanted. He quickly decided on a sword and then proceeded to remind me all day that I would get him a sword. Especially when we passed a tacky souvenir booth (and there are tons of them) that sold swords. Well, he was awesome good all day. He listened very well and stayed close to the group and held hands when necessary. Very impressive for an adventurous 4 year old, who prefers running full speed to just about anything else. So as we were headed out, he and I headed for the nearest tacky souvenir booth to get him a sword. We were inspecting the merchandise, to find the best one, when it happened. I stepped sideways to look at what Clay was looking at, not realizing I was standing on a curb.

 

Oh yeah, I fell down. Fell damn hard too. I managed to save most of my beer (I am so proud, my daddy taught me well), but my body wasn't so lucky. I scraped and bruised both knees and my right hand (my left hand was holding the beer and came through unscathed) and rolled my right ankle. It swelled up about three times its normal size and is a rather impressive shade of purple. I limped my way out of the fair, in a great deal of pain, but mostly just feeling stupid.

 

You see, it was only my first beer. If it had been my tenth, I would have been fine with it, but falling down while sober is a pretty humiliating experience. That's another reason to love beer, takes away the sting of humiliation, if not the sting of falling down.

 

Even with the digger, I am still feeling good about the fair. This is the first time I have been with little kids, and it was great to see things and experience them through their eyes. It really puts a new perspective on the same things I see year after year. I'd love to go with them again.