County Fair

Waiting for the parade to start. Alex was with his father.

It's starting! It's starting!

He likes the police cars and the fire trucks - the loud sirens and air horns? Not so much.

There were demolition derby cars....

....a couple of tractors....and a few other things. But the entire parade was over in about 25 minutes.

So then we went to the fairgrounds. We saw cows...

...and more cows....

...and some really beautiful cows.

There were goats...

...and more goats...

...and sleepy goats snuggling with each other.

For the first time in over a month, it looked like it could rain.

Daniel flew an airplane.

The big kids got to ride a big ride.

Daniel got to drive a train.

The older 3 rode another big one....until Jared freaked and the ride operator had to stop it so that he could get off of it.

The Goof Dude and I rode the ferris wheel together.

The sky opened up and it poured down rain while we were on it (but I hid my phone while that happened).

There was a great view from the top.

We were having fun acting like a couple of goofy kids.

And then he noticed the duct tape holding the ride together.

After the storm, there was a rainbow (symbolic, huh?)...

...and a gorgeous sunset.

Finally, my favorite picture of the day. We ran into a friend while we were there, and she shot this one of us on the ferris wheel and then posted it on my facebook wall. I love this picture. I love this guy. There aren't many people in this world who can make me smile like this, and I swear that what we have just gets better every day.

In the grand scheme of things, we haven't been together all that long, but we've been through some pretty rough stuff. He has seen me at my best and at my worst - and yet he keeps coming back. This past month or so without my van has been trying, to say the least, but we just keep plugging along, working it out, dealing with the problems as they arise.

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to keep him around for a while.

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If you've been following the saga about my dead van and you want to make a contribution to the Transmission Fund to get it fixed, you can click HERE to do that. And if you don't, that's ok.

If you want to badmouth me for asking for help, get in line. Or better yet, shoot me a message so that we can talk about it and so that you can make a better suggestion about what I should do now.

Thanks to some very generous contributions, the fund is now up to $853.21, which is about 34% of what we need to repair it - so we are officially a third of the way there! The Dude and I are continuing to chug along to scrounge up as much money as we can so that we can continue to add to it - he wants his van back almost as much as I want mine. Having one vehicle between two houses can be stressful, to say the least.

But we'll get through it.

Family Reunion (TMOART:12)

I figured that I'd actually put up a few pictures from the reunion. It was held at DelGrosso's Amusement Park in Tipton, PA. The park itself was nice - they had quite a few rides (but no big rollercoaster - boo) and a water park so we spent most of our time riding rides and getting wet because it was a hot day.

We got a prize!

My brother won (or lost?) a game and had to wear a "pair of bloomers"!

Cousins. Yep, I've always been short.

At least I was cute at one point in my life.

Emily coming down the slide on the left

Sarah on the right

The Dude - who skimmed across the water so far that he almost hit the other side of the pool!

Alex and me coming down the black slide

One of the best. pictures. ever.

All in all it was a fun day. We didn't get to visit with relatives as much as we should have but it would have been impossible to keep the kids in one place long enough to do that. But we got to at least say hi and get some pictures and do a little bit of visiting. After we got done there, we went back to my parents' house and that's when I ended up on the roof with my brother. Plans for next year's reunion are already being made - but I think we might rent a vehicle to go back the next time!

County Fair time!!!

This weekend is the local County Free Fair. We had a day filled with livestock and arts & crafts and produce exhibits, a parade, and rides later on tonight. There were people to watch and places to go and food to eat.

Out of over 300 pictures, here are a few highlights. :)

Enjoy.