Fully Alive…Ready to Smile

posted by erin on Jun 15

This weekend was our town’s esteemed fair.  It’s quite the little shindig already.  I look forward to it with great anticipation and I am usually not disappointed.  Granted, this year we didn’t have any of the usual long hot summer nights, but it was still fun bundled up in winter coats and blankets.  I exaggerateth not!  One of my friends was wearing her winter jacket.  And I of course looked all chill and hawt in my thin, springy white coat, but I was a shivery mess under the thin facade of hotness.  Not to worry, though, I used a bag of steaming hot mini donuts to warm myself up.  On at least 3 different occasions.  Me thinks that’s not very “cleanse friendly” food.

We took the girls on Friday night to the “street party.”  This is where everyone you know and lots of people you don’t know congregate on main street (which is blocked off from one end of town to the other) to reconnect with old friends and stuff their faces with cotton candy, sausage burgers, corn dogs, watermelon and rollkuchen, borscht, mini donuts and many other scrumptious delights.  I TOTALLY get my $10 worth of food out of this night : ).  It feels like a great big Facebook gathering and just a little like a high school reunion every year.  Which is good because it makes me feel a little less guilty that I’ll be missing out on my 10 year reunion next weekend as we’re on our road trip.  I didn’t do that on purpose.  Promise.

There’s always a really good midway set up on one end of Main Street and this year I was excited to see my girls actually want to go on the rides and enjoy them with so much enthusiasm.  The last 2 years have been a total bust where the rides are concerned as the girls were not at all interested in even trying them.

I was even surprised when they begged to go on the ferris wheel and loved it when Daddy took them up.  Mommy stayed behind because SOMEONE has to take pictures…okay and maybe I’m a _little bit afraid of heights.  Or a lot.  Although there was such a beautiful sunset that I was wishing I had sucked it up and gone up with them to see it and take some pictures.  Oh, well, I got some cute pics of the girls.

Ella and Daddy as they wait to go up.

Aidan peering through to get her picture taken.

The lovely sunset made such a gorgeous silhouette of the ferris wheel.

That’s Ella looking for me on the ground.

You may have noticed in the pictures their cute faces.  They wanted to get their faces painted.  Ella got a lovely butterfly complete with glitter and Aidan got a bunny, which if I do say so myself, made her look even more mischievous!

The evening concluded with an incredible display of fireworks.  I have to say that our town puts a lot of fireworks out there to shame and this year’s were by far the best yet.  The girls were awed by how sparkly and loud they were.  I’m a sucker for fireworks and so I’m just like a kid at fireworks time.

Saturday we pawned the kids off to Jer’s parents and we went to the fair in the early evening.  Jer had to work serving at the chicken dinner with the rest of the guys from his work.  They tried to rope me into helping as well, but I was there for fun, not to work…and the t-shirt and free wristband was just not enough of an enticement for me.

After Jer was done his stint serving coleslaw and corn we meandered for a while until I got the brilliant idea that we should go on a ride.  I don’t do rides for the most part because they are usually high.  I LOVE the Tilt-a-Whirl and I’ll do that umpteen times in a row, but Jer thought we should go on the “Monster” a.k.a. “Octopus.”  Now who in their right and sane mind goes on a ride called that?  Just wondering.  And for some reason my head is bobbing up and down saying yes while everything in me screams “YOU IDIOT!!”  I thought it would be a little like a glorified Tilt-a-Whirl because it spins and stuff.  Yeah well.  Dumb, dumb, dumb!  Not only does it spin you around in your little bucket, it spins around the whole ride and then it goes up and down at retarded speeds.

I made it around the first rotation and I’m thinking, “this isn’t so bad, I can do this” and then she really got going at a good clip.  Let’s just say I pinched my eyes tight, held on for dear life and pretty much lost all feeling in my legs.  I think I may have screamed, definitely prayed and maybe just maybe swore once or twice.  Hey, I was in self preservation mode.  When the ride stopped I was white faced and week-kneed.  I think I’ll stick to the Tilt-a-Whirl from now on and most definitely not let Jer pick rides anymore!!!

After that was over and I could walk again we made it back to the area with the stage and bleachers and found our friends.  Doc Walker was the main entertainment for the night and they put on an awesome show.  And I don’t even do country music.  I think I might even download some of their tunes because I was that impressed.  Ssshhh, don’t tell anyone because that would ruin my reputation as a country music detester.

The concert ended with another round of fabulous pyrotechnics.  Happy sigh, I LOVE fireworks.  I think I said that already, didn’t I?  We were going to go home at that point as I was freezing cold, but then the rides seduced us one more time.  I did one last spin on the Tilt-a-Whirl with a friend and then convinced Jer to go on the Sizzler.  This one was AWESOME!!  The g-force on that thing was something to be reckoned with.  The guy even asked if we wanted to stay on for free rides because there was no one waiting, but at this point I figured I should probably just call it a night.  Sure enough, when we got off I couldn’t walk in a straight line.  It was hilarious! : )  And as we were walking back to the car I discovered the most interesting fact, you use bum muscles that don’t usually get any use when you are tensed up while on crazy death defying rides.  I can’t even sit today.  My buttox feels completely bruised.  TMI?  Sorry.  I thought it was interesting.

Other than the weather being cold, it was a perfect weekend.  Can’t wait till next year.