fairing well

It was cool and rainy for much of Saturday morning, but we ventured out to the opening weekend of the State Fair anyway after lunch.  The rain was supposed to be done and it was actually cool and comfortable out with all the humidity wrung out from the doozy of a storm that rolled through last night.  By the time we got out there, the sun was out and it was a perfect 70° outside.  Perfect!!  I think the rainy morning scared everyone off, because it was fairly empty most of the early afternoon.  Even better for us!

Knowing this weekend was supposed to be this perfectly sunshiney "fall" weather, rather than the usual hot and muggy early September stuff, was one of our main motivators for getting out to the fair this year.  That, and we realized we have never taken our kids to a fair... Savannah went when she was just over a year old and we haven't been since.  Sure, we've been to festivals and carnivals and fair-ish things like that, but not a full-fledged county or state fair.  When we mentioned it to the kids, Sawyer actually had to ask, "what's the fair??"  So we whisked him off to show him. :)

We walked though lots of the ag stuff... saw the giant watermelons and honeybees and indulged in the free chocolate milk.  We looked at bugs and butterflies and some giant cicadas.  We petted bunnies (with both kids begging for a pet bunny the whole time we were in there) and chirped at baby chicks and admired the beautiful colors on the roosters.  We went through the "petting" farm... and Sawyer and Savannah fed goats and and sheep, ponies and llamas, calves and pigs.  Remy got down to pet a goat or two and LOVED them, laughing like crazy when the cute little animals would get close enough for him to touch.  We saw part of a calf show and took a peek at a horse show.

And of course the rides.  We didn't do as much as we wanted too... Savannah had been sick overnight into the early morning and although she seemed and felt totally fine from about 7am on, we didn't want to push our luck.  So Sawyer and Ryan did most of the rides, with SJ jumping in on a couple of Fun Houses and of course the Ferris Wheel.  They played a few games too... fishing and throwing darts... won a couple of stuffed animals (and a glowy sword) each.

And the food.  We kept it light as we purposely avoided "fairing" at meal time, but we had to have a giant lemonade, a giant hand-dipped corndog, and the highlight... Elephant Ears.  We've grown accustomed to every carnival cart/fair food selling vendor having Funnel Cakes out here... no one we inquire has even heard of Elephant Ears and they think we're crazy when we ask about it. Funnel Cakes just aren't the same.  Well, the Tennessee State Fair today renewed our spirits by not only having several carts that sold a plate-sized cake of "fried dough" rather than just the squiggly crunchy mess of a funnel cake, but we also found one that actually called it it's rightful (by Northwest standards) name; Elephant Ears!   We were in cinnamon sugar heaven. ;)

We finished off our afternoon on the carousel... (again, low key for SJ)
All in all it was a beautifully perfect Fair day.  So glad we went.
And I think we won the kids over as Fair-goers.

ready for take off!

from the ferris wheel

on the ferris wheel

bessy isn't impressed with sj's "got milk?" sticker

even remy partook in the giant corndog

p.s. we continued our "taste of home" tonight by finding one of our very favorite go-to beers from back home, which has only been available in the northwest until now, in our own corner grocery store!  Good old Kroger is now selling the newly nationally released Henry Weinhard's Private Reserve.  Oh, good old Henry's.  How we've missed you.
And does this mean we'll soon get the amazingly yummy root beer and cream sodas from Henry's out here as well??  One can only hope.

on camping and hiking and a pretty darn near perfect weekend

Yes, we had a pretty near perfect weekend around here.

A nice 80° and nothing but sunshine will do that for you. :)

Saturday we lounged around all morning and after Remy woke up from his morning nap (why yes he's still here, thanks for asking!) we whipped up a quick lunch and then we headed out for a little family hike.

I've had the camping itch bad lately. (can you blame me?  it's been two three years!!)
And random side note: I've seen this summer lots of blog posts, pictures on facebook, etc, titled "camping trip 2012"... and it always catches my attention because I find it amusing/out of my norm that one single camping trip is the total of a family's camping experience for the year.
Keep in mind that when I was little, growing up in the Northwest, we more often than not spent the summer weekends camping.  Lots of them.  My dad had four brothers and they all loved whitewater rafting together so we camped a lot at the Deschutes River.  Or we camped at the beach.  Or Silver Falls.  Or Mt Hood. 
And when I started camping on my own, it was still at least a May thru September monthly, if not more, thing. 
Savannah started camping with us when she was three months old and spent spent more than a handful of weekends of her first three summers at campgrounds. 
It was only when we left Oregon that we slowed down.  I think we only camped once the year we lived in Michigan.  And not enough when we lived in St Louis.  And the two-ish summers we've been in Nashville?  (I say two-ish because I'm not counting this one done yet, and the very first one was when we were in limbo all summer between STL and here)  Nada.  No camping whatsoever.  Which is sad, sad, sad.  So while instinctively I want to balk at "campers" who make it out only once a year... the sad truth is, I'm no better than them.  Worse actually, because I don't even have a camping trip to look back on for the years 2010 and 2011.  And that is almost incomprehensible to me.  :(

Anyway, so we've been really itching to get out there this year.
Problem is, around here, summer is just too hot to tent camp.  With temps close to 100 during the day and being lucky if it cools off to below 80 at night... summertime is not great camping time in this neck of the woods.
And our springtime was too busy with softball and baseball and a little trip to Oregon for two and a half weeks.
So we've been itching for fall to get here this year to bring some camping weather.

Luckily, even though it's still August, we've had a little bit of nice, actually tolerable weather as of late.
With highs in the low 80's and nighttime lows getting down to 60... that is perfect camping weather!!
So this itch has been getting stronger.

We considered going last minute last weekend, but having it be a maiden voyage with a dog and with this little guy we have here, plus the fact that we were due to be on duty in the nursery at church on Sunday, we reluctantly dropped the camping idea.

I did however, in my wishing/planning/research, find a couple of campgrounds nice and close to us and so while we weren't up for a full camping trip, we decided to get out and explore anyway.
We went down to Henry Horton state park, which is just 40 miles south of us.  We loaded up the dog and the baby and the kids and some snacks and headed down to do a little couple mile hike along the river and check out the campground for future use. 
It passed our inspection. ;)

It was a fun little hike and when we'd done the river loop, we stopped and snacked and played at the playground near the campground.  I took some cute pics of Remy hanging out in the backpack, but they're mostly of his face so I can't share those.  The kids had fun though and Sawyer especially (and due to the olympics) was sizing up the sand volleyball court next to the playground and telling me to make sure I put the badminton stuff and a beachball on our list of necessities for when we go back down to camp there.
It seemed both kids in fact, started every other sentence with, "when we come back to camp here...", and asking when exactly that will be.
I think we've deprived them for too long. ;)

Remy started losing it when it got too far past his naptime so we eventually piled back in the car and headed home.
Stopping for at Sonic of course for just-in-the-nick-of-time Happy Hour.

And then once we got home the kids played in the backyard pretty much non-stop until after dark.
It's been a long time since we've had cool enough weather to do that.  We ordered chinese food and stayed out way past bedtime to catch fireflies and hoping to catch a sneak peek of the meteor shower this weekend.

It was such a fun weekend. 
You forget, in the heat of the usual summer here, how fun it is to just get outside for the day.  The stuff we took for granted growing up in Oregon... having the freedom to play outside all day all summer and camping whenever and wherever we wanted to.

Great thing is, we've got the same beautiful weather on tap so far for this next weekend!
Camping anyone??

and suddenly it's 'last summer'