Packed night

Not sure I'll be able to finish this entry in one post but here'goes: Yesterday we went to the fair! My husband had a vacation day so we went down and had some fun! We spent some time with The Mr.'s cousins when it started raining. A lot. After a while it quit (mostly) but we decided to go to the fair anyway! It was so cheap that I even got a bracelet so I could ride rides and that almost NEVER happens anymore! Unfortunately it started raining again so I couldn't get any good pictures of the kids :(

I went on something called "the hustler." It was by FAR the SCARIEST ride I had EVER ridden! But that was mainly due to the fact that #1 there was only two or three functioning seatbelts, #2 only half the cars were able to hold people, and #3 on the far end the cart went hurtling towards a back wall and LITERALLY came up about an inch (or maybe less!) away from the wall before stopping and hurtling the other direction. It was also the first time EVER that my Angel and Bossman went on such a ride. (I made pretty darn sure THEY were in the functioning seatbelts). I thought bossman would be the one scared of the ride so I stayed next to him and held on to him. I figured my Angel would be fine because she's generally fearless. However I did worry she'd be genetically predesposed to be more like her half sister Poinsettia when it comes to the rides that "go in circles." Poinsettia insists on going on these rides and I've been on a few with her. First she's all smiles, then the smile disappears and a small, weird frown appears. Then her face suddenly goes white as a sheet and it's very disconcerting because her eyes kind of glaze over and it's like you're riding with a dead person. I've noticed that she stops breathing which is probably why she starts feeling sick so while I'm holding on to Bossman I'm telling her she should breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. All the while Angel is also smiling and laughing. Then suddenly Angel's smile disappears and the funniest frown I've ever seen comes up and she says "I'm done!" So I flag the guy down to let us off and we're off. Bossman LOVED it! I spent the rest of the night trying to convince him that he is just too small to ride some rides. My Star rode the hustler, too but he spent the whole ride looking at his feet LOL!

Soon the rain got to the point where the rides started shutting down. My husband signed my kids up for something called a "scramble." For Bossman's age they set small chicken and chicken-like birds (peahens?) and ducklings and bunnies out in a huge pen and then they set out the kids to go catch them. Bossman set out after a duck but he ended up catching a rabbit. He then brought the rabbit to me. He then went out and caught another rabbit. He brought that one to a staff member who brought the rabbit to me. I said "He's already caught one." The staff guy said "well now he's caught two" and gave me the rabbit. So I gave the rabbit to Poinsettia and went off to find the husband. Apparently when the kids catch the pets they get to KEEP the pets! There WAS one guy who "bought" the animals back for like $5 a pop, but the Mr. told Bossman he could keep his bunnies (and he spent the entire night announcing to everyone that they were HIS bunnies thankyouverymuch). He wanted to name one Ben and the other Benjamin. (I'm not sure if that's because HIS name is Ben or if it's after "Benjamin Bunny" from school...) in any case I said NO, because all I need is for someone to be on the phone and hear me yell "THA'TS IT PUT BENJAMIN IN THE CAGE RIGHT NOW!!" and then have the cops called on me LOL.

The OLDER kids (in their seperate age groups of course) were signed up to catch first goats and then pigs. None of my kids got anywhere near a goat. However my Angel caught a piglet! Then Poinsettia caught one! Keep in mind that it's been raining this whole time so my kids all came back COMPLETELY covered in MUD!! The kids who caught a pig each got $20! (Angel IMMEDIATELY wanted to go to Payless) The boys were mad that they didn't catch anything and wanted to go for rides but The Mr. had a suprise for me. There was an all-new event called the women's scramble. Guess who The Mr. signed up to go? ME. He was laughing at me cuz I'm a "city girl" who's never had to chase goats or pigs before. So whatever I've fished and camped and hiked even when I WAS a city girl so I agreed to go.

I got NO WHERE NEAR a goat. Some of them girls are SERIOUS about catching those animals! I saw one girl tackle one poor goat! LOL The PIGS on the other hand....I managed to get a hold of TWO but both times the little piggy got away and I got mud in my face. I'm sure I'll be picking the sandy mud out of my hair for days even though I've had two showers.

We had to go get HOSED OFF! LOL. The Mr. was the only one who didn't get dirty! Anyway, when we parked the van I said something was wrong with the brakes of the van. When I stopped it the brake went all the way to the floor and I always notice anything that's different ever with my vehicles (my husband the mechanic finds this VERY annoying but 90% of the time I'm always right). The Mr decided it must just be wet brakes and we enjoyed our muddy adventures at the fair. However when leaving the parking lot I started flipping out because it was as if I suddenly had NO BRAKES AT ALL! My husband (the mechanic) said there was absolutely nothing to be done and I needed to just drive home (with no brakes).

You know, it's funny how your driving style changes when you take brakes out of the equation! Especially when it's RAINING!! It took us HOURS to get home cuz when I saw a stopsign I'd let off the gas and just roll up to the stop sign and if it was absolutely clear I'd just roll through and if it wasn't I'd hit the brake (which would immediately go all the way to the floor with little discernable effect on the vehicles' speed) until I actually stopped (by the time I got to the stopsign I was maybe going 10-15mph). When we finally got home we put the bunnies in the house, let the pups out and started shoving kids through the shower even though it was around midnight.

Great night! Now I have to figure out how to take care of bunnies...and how to see if they're male or female. It's a packrats worst nightmare: 15 years ago I had a cavy named Yorrick who died around 12 years ago. I still had AAAAAALL his stuff until (I swear!) LAST WEEK! While cleaning up for the boy's birthday party I found it and said "I'll never have another rodent again I might as well get rid of this" and out the house it went! NOW I HAVE BUNNIES!! AAARRRG!