and that's it for another year

Well that's it. The fair is over. Packed up. Hauled away. Cleaned up. The girls have their father back. I have my husband back. Everything is slowly settling back into normal. Well once we get through the flurry of "wrap up meetings" that Mike will have to attend. Then we can declare things normal once again.

I can't say that we've seen much of Mike since Last Wednesday afternoon. Even when we were in the same geographical location we were rarely together. The only exception being bed and we were both passed out cold, so I'm not sure that counts. I don't think I was anticipating how much work Mike was going to do. While he's been heavily involved with the School Fair for years, it's a relatively light workload. Most of the work for School Fair is completed before the fair officially opens and the rest of the weekend is spent "babysitting" the building to make sure no child's art work meets with foul play. Meaning it was easy for Mike to slip away for a break or some family time. This is not true when you're the second vice president. Before I go much further I have to tell you, I am in no way complaining. Mike and I discussed what would be required of him as 2nd VP and as he made his way up the chain. I agreed that it was an exciting opportunity and I completely support him. Even still, this weekend was tough.

Maya didn't see him for two days (he left the house before she got up and didn't get back until long after she was in bed), which I think contributed to her whine factor on Sunday. With everyone busy with fair obligations on Sunday I attempted to take the girls around on my own. Mike did break away for about an hour while they did the ride and games thing. I think we managed okay, the girls and I, for the most part. I mean the girls had fun, but it was a little tiring/stressful for Mommy. It's these sort of situations when I find the age gap between them absolutely huge. And really with so much stimulation around, Maya really needs one to one attention. She is getting so much better handling things socially, but she's far from Abby's level of "social independence". So there was some whining and a couple of minor meltdowns and a titch of clinginess, but overall I think they both enjoyed themselves.



Abby jumped at the chance to get her face painted.



And Maya had hers done as well. Which shocked me because it required a stranger to touch her. She sat in my lap while she had it done, wouldn't do it otherwise and afterward wasn't quite sure if the whole face painting thing was the best idea. Then she touched her face. Before the face paint dried and got face paint on her fingers. Oh the horror. No, seriously. And then there was the whole hotdog on a bun debacle. No matter, that I took it out of the bun. Her appetite had been ruined.



The face paint barely survived the whole facepainting/hot bog bun ordeal. Can you see the tracks her tears carved through the make up? Luckily a chocolate milk and an ice cream cone brought everything back down to an even keel. Yes, I bought her off with chocolate. I'm not proud, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I just barely got a chance to peek in the hall at the homecraft exhibits. Not long enough to know how I did overall. For that I had to wait until Mike picked them up this morning. In photography I scored one first, three thirds, and two fourths. Not bad at all. My jam got shut out, but I picked up a first for that carrot cake, so I am pleased overall and cannot wait to do it all again next year.



The girls scored a couple of webkinz, thanks to Grandma Linda footing the bill for the webkinz wheel of fortune. We checked out the antique tractors and steam engine, which Abby thought was pretty darn cool. We saw the baby pigs, a cow or two, some chicks (which Maya loved and which now live at ML's house, so guess where we're going this week?) and the donkey our cat is named after. We bought some kettle corn and some butter tart fudge that I was going to share with Papa, but it was so delicious I may have accidentally eaten the whole piece by myself. And then Mike realized a life long dream....



It cannot be understated how much Mike loves the Duke's of Hazzard TV show. He may forget to bring home milk or cat food, but he knows every minute of every episode in the entire series. He couldn't tell you how much the girls weighed at birth (he could ballpark it), but he could tell you what the General Lee's license plate is. He is on the committe that organized the antique tractor/classic car show and he decided he was going to find a general lee to come and display at the fair. And he did.



True fans find true fans, I think. And that was certainly the case here. The guy that owns the car was nice enough to let Mike slide behind the wheel for some pictures. Truly the highlight of Mike's weekend and something to cross off his bucket list.

And now as Mike's work is finished, mine is just beginning. I have 111 pages of information to get onto the appropriate spreadsheets. I've managed about 30 pages so far. Then there's the pay outs to organize. After that some fine tuning of the system so it works a little better for me. I aim to have the entire project done by the end of October. Wish me luck!