Day 4

Saturday is always a crazy day of fairing.  We started out early at the pet show, where Quincy got a champion ribbon on her pet hedgehog.  She did not get overall champion and was disappointed.  She did a great job and knew a lot of information.  

From the pet show, it was clean out, take home, wash goats for the sale and go to the parade.  Cameron came down from Manhattan to watch Preston in the parade, watch the auction and the demolition derby in which Colin, Garrett and Gavin had a team.  He brought his girlfriend and his roommates with him.  His girlfriend had never been to a county fair or a derby before!  Guess she didn't grow up around here!  

Saturday was stupid hot.  No breeze, humid as all get out, miserable.  I was kind of worried about the baby, but she seemed like she was having a great time!  :)  Her first parade!

The parade theme was "Christmas in August."  The kid's 4-H club float had a naughty and nice list and I happened to notice they put me on the naughty list!  Just wait until the next meeting!  :)  

Preston and the Santa Fe Trail band sounded awesome.  They won the battle of the bands this year which is exciting since the grand prize is $1500!  

From the parade we ran (literally) to the sale.  The kids are always sad to sell, but the buyers were very generous, and even though we shed a few tears, the hardest things teach big lessons.  

The kids served the buyers dinner in record time!  

We were glad to get done with the dinner in time to watch the final heat of the derby.  Colin, Garrett and Gavin had a team in the event.  Colin's car got smashed before the finals (in the below photo you can clearly see).   The good news was that Garrett and Gavin both had cars in the final heat.  Their team won the derby!  Colin was excited!  

Madison sent me this picture - Colin is in the blue car that was below the black car.  We are beyond thankful that he was not hurt, and owe a bit of gratitude to my cousin Luke, who installed a cage around the driver for just such an event.  

I will say this for the record.  I LOVE the county fair.  The best memories I have of my childhood and of my kids growing up all seem to come from county fair time.  However, I was pretty happy to see the end of this one!  

Day 3

Friday we started out with our club tour and meeting.  It was ridiculously long, but there were a lot of kids who wanted to share their projects with the club!  I am happy that so many showed up!  We tried to get a new group picture for our facebook page, but that went about as well as herding cats! 

Friday was the annual band camp picnic and parade preview night.  The band boosters cooked almost 200 hamburgers and 100 hotdogs and we were close to running out of food!  It was a good night, even though it is a lot of work!  I enjoy the high school band.  I would be lying if I told you that I didn't enjoy my one year hiatus from high school events though!  Preston being a freshman is forcing me to start attending things again!  We got everything cooked, served the kids and their families, got everything cleaned up, and watched the preview show all in just under an hour and a half.  That was a record!  

Aunt Amy got the little girls some carnival wrist band passes.  They had fun riding rides, although I missed getting pictures of Harper.  Saige and her friend rode a lot of stuff and Saige didn't want it to ever end!  She told me it was the most fun day ever!  

Day 2

Thursday was the poultry show.  This is Quincy's favorite part of 4-H.  Preston wants no part of it, and Harper and Saige feel pretty "meh" about it.  The girls all did showmanship.  They got blue ribbons, and Quincy was reserve champion.  I am always proud of awards earned in showmanship!

Quincy was not only reserve champion in showmanship, but she also had the reserve champion waterfowl with her duck.  I am proud of her for all the work she put in.  I am also extremely proud of her for helping so many kids before the show getting ready, teaching them how to correctly carry their birds, teaching them terminology, and just generally being a great older member!

Harper got a blue ribbon on her pet poster about her kittens.  

Saige had both the champion and the reserve champion foods in her class.  If you can't tell, Madison helped her!  :)  She learned a lot of tips and pointers from Madison and she had a lot of fun.  Champion was peanut butter cookies, and reserve was oatmeal raisin.  She also made blueberry muffins, and they got a blue.  Quincy made some scones (technically Madison made some scones) and they got a blue ribbon as well.  

Thursday was a fun day!

Fair 2019

Last week was the county fair here in our part of the world.  If they issued grades for preparedness we would have been given a solid F-.  We managed to pull it off despite our lack of preparation though.  I always love the county fair once every thing is entered (thank you Uncle Eric for driving our stuff to town) and the rush of making sure you have everything gathered up is over!

Wednesday was goat show day.  The kids did a great job and everything made weight (thank you Grandpa and Grandma for helping us out with feed this year!).  

This was Saige's first official 4-H goat show.  She had a wild goat (the lack of preparation was very apparent here).  She managed to wrangle it around and got a blue ribbon!  The other goats were red ribbon winners, but again we made it there and they  made weight -- who needs a trophy right?  :)  

I am proud to say that the kids did their own work, helped each other, got along, and had a great time.  All of those things make me extremely happy.