Fair Time!

Time again for our little Lacamas Community Fair. The kids entered flowers, vegetables, art, sewing, photos and chickens this year. Above is MN standing by her Grand Champion Rosemary and Reserve Champ Lilys. ( above her head ) Her carrots that she planted along with Little J this year also did very well.

CT and KN along with 3 of my nieces each showed a chicken.

Here's CT showing the judge the wing of his chicken and naming the parts of the wing.

He won reserve champion for Intermediate Poultry Fitting and Showing. This was his first time and he was excited to do this. He'll be showing chickens for the first time at our state fair this year also so this was good practice for him.

Little J was more interested in hanging out by the fire trucks. He drug me over there to watch a fireman take his pants off. ( His fire uniform pants - he had pants on underneath. ) He wanted one of the firemen to show him each and every little gadget on that truck and explain what it did. Then he was able to relay to his Daddy what he'd learned. This was exciting for him because this is the truck he hears drive by our house with it's sirens blaring occasionally.

CT and his cousin competed in the watermelon eating contest. The kids really enjoyed the fair this year. CT also won grand champion for a drawing he did of a Water Dragon. I had framed it and hung it on my wall by our kitchen but he wanted to enter it. Now it's back up on our wall and I can say it's 'award winning art.' =)

Fair Games

There are always lots of games to join in on at the fair. My kids are so shy that I usually have to do quite a bit of coaxing to get them to participate but this year MN was big enough to handle herself in the penny / candy scramble.

Look at all that candy just waiting to be grabbed. MN came out of it with a load of candy to bring home and Little J got into this one too and was happy with his several pieces.

This is the first line up for the three legged race. There was a huge turnout at the community fair this year! I thought with everyone's gardens not doing so well and the economy and all that the numbers might not be too high for entries and the general public attending but Wow! Both days seemed to be crowded with people. There were 3 line ups like this in the horse arena for the three legged race.

Here CT stands waiting with his friend Aidan for their turn to race. Their ribbon that tied their legs together ended up breaking half way down the arena so they had to leave the race. Oh well, all in good fun.

KN and her friend Abby are ready to go and they made it there and back in a timely manner.

Abby is my good friend's daughter. Abby and KN are the same age and Abby's mom and I are the same age. I met her mom when we were 10 years old. Both of us were showing rabbits at our county fair. We've been "fair friends" ever since and see each other every year at the fair. It's fun now to have kids the same age who enjoy seeing and playing with each other at the fair!

I've been coming to this little fair since I was 11 years old and whether I was showing my animals, volunteering to work or judge there or bringing my kids to participate, I have only missed one year - 2008, when I had our 4th baby and just couldn't get over there. It's like a neighborhood block party for country folk. All of the people helping out, setting up, having fun, taking down and working hard here are our neighbors or live very close by. ( many live on our little dirt road. ) I'm happy my kids and husband enjoy taking part in something I grew up enjoying and coming up at the end of this month my oldest son will do something else I grew up doing - working / helping at the state fair with my mom! Oooooooh, I can smell those scones and the smoking barbecue pit now! Lucky kid.

Lacamas Community Fair 2010

The kids entered a few things in our little community fair again this year. MN's "Jack O' Lantern" Dahlia won best for it's category and was displayed on the champion flower table along with KN's pink Gladiola. Here are both girls showing their pretty pink rosette ribbons. You can see the Dahlia in the background between the two girls and the Glad above KN's head there.

CT entered a bottle of his cream soda that he made this year. It had to have a label to enter it so we put a Bearded Dragon on the front and called it "Bearded Dragon's Tongue Waggin' Cream Soda". He got a first place blue ribbon for it and some judges comments to help him make an even better batch next year.

Thought I'd show you these two big boys who were set up at the fair this year. They were cool to watch.

We spent most of Sunday just hanging out and letting the kids participate in any of the activities they wanted before taking their entries home at the end of the day. There were coloring contests to color for...

Stick horses to make. Little J made his first ever stick horse with help from his daddy.

He carried it around and now rides it around our living room instead of the barbecue tongs he usually pulls out to ride. Still, he's not obsessed with the horsies like his big brother was - Little J is still all about trucks and trailers.

KN entered some peanut butter cookies, a couple of other flowers and some onions she grew, a vegetable critter ( she made a walrus out of onions and green tomatoes ) and a drawing of roses.

MN entered our strawberries, onions and a couple of flowers.

CT entered a lego model of a chameleon, a pencil drawing of a chameleon, his cream soda, beets, and a vegetable critter - this year he did a porcupine using rosemary needles for the quills.

Fun at the Community Fair

We spent the day at our little community fair yesterday. The kids were anxious to check out what awards their entries got. KN was pleased to find that her cucumber got the 'Outstanding' award and a lovely pink rosette ribbon. She got a blue ribbon for her cherry tomatoes. CT won a blue for his cherry tomatoes, cucumber and got grand champion for his peppers.

At first we couldn't find the two large Dahlia's KN and CT had entered. Then we spotted them on the display shelf for the winning flowers. KN's Dahlia ( red and yellow ) won grand champion and CT's ( white ) Dahlia won reserve champion.

CT also won an 'Outstanding' award for his bison made out of vegetables! Potato body, head and horns, pea eyes, broccoli stem legs, pea pod tail and corn silk fur.

KN also got blue first place ribbons for her rose and gladiola. Each kid entered two other varieties of Dahlias shown below but they got red ribbons. Something in the comments about not being of mature size. Not sure what the reason is there because these other 4 Dahlias are only medium sized varieties and not supposed to get very big but we're not complaining. Each judge has their reasons. KN got a 1st place on her peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies and a red ( 2nd ) on her cinnamon rolls. We kind of rushed them on the whole rise / bake process this time in order to get over to Grandma's to play and then our power went out for the rest of that day so we would've given them a pretty low placement ourselves. She'll try again next year!

I set Little J free from his stroller and decided to let him wander off wherever and I'd just follow along. He headed straight out the fair building door, across the gravel parking lot and into the covered dog show tent. He then found the beautiful Weimareiner dog in it's crate and sat down in front of it and said " Dog, woof woof, dog. " He kept taking me back to see the dogs.

When 'Daddy ' was keeping track of him, Little J kept taking Daddy to the fire dept. table.

He wanted a fireman hat. Then he pointed to the bags of coloring books for kids. The firewoman gave him one. Little J was very happy and took off with his hat and bag to show Daddy the tractors on the other side of the parking lot.

Here's my mom spinning her wool during the fair. They stuck her in a corner of the arts and crafts building. I think she enhanced that corner quite nicely and she drew in quite a few people who liked to watch her spin and chat with her.

The kids enjoyed watching the pony costume contest. I don't know who this little girl is but she's leading her pony dressed up for mardi gras in the contest.

They also had a pony pie eating contest which the kids watched. I guess the ponies got to eat cherry pies ~ as many as they could in a certain amount of time.

KN ran in the 3 legged race with our little friend Abby DeVlieger and they got a blue ribbon. The kids also entered some art ( drawings ) which got them more blue ribbons. They had a good time running around the fair and collecting their winnings at the end of the day. KN decided to eat her remaining cinnamon roll and said it still tasted good. They're all looking forward to next year and already thinking of all of the things they can enter.