Fair Fun

Ahh the smell of funnel cakes, pigs and carnies was in the air this weekend. The fair was in town. We had a great time. On Thursday, I went with my first graders and Jara, (and thankfully my mom) and on Saturday we went as a family with friends from Las Vegas.

Jara with her ice cream. Notice the angry look she gave me when I suggested she needed to give me a bite! I don't share food either I don't know why I expected her to.

Here are my kids all in orange sitting still for a minute, they had ice cream too! The Anderson dairy gave all of the Bowler elementary teachers coupons for a free scoop of ice cream for each kid in their class. I love free stuff!

Here we are riding the train around the fair. I make all my kids wear orange every year and we've never had anyone lost or stolen.

Jara loved the kid zone. There were so many things for small kids to do. The sand pit was a big favorite. Notice the extreme look of concentration as she rides the trike.

Jara and her friend Logan petting a baby calf. Jara was mostly into the sticker she had just got and not so much the calf.

Jed took Jara on the "kiddie" coaster for her first fair ride ever and traumatized them both. It was a little too intense and resulted in rebellion on the carousel. Jara refused to go on anymore rides and Jed had to scalp his carnival tickets to an 8-year-old girl.

My favorite part of the fair, the food. This is the one time of the year I put down all my guard and ignore my inner germ phobic and go crazy. I ignore the fact that people without gloves are touching my food and go to the Navajo with no teeth who sells the Indian tacos because he makes the best! Once I let go, I really let go and pray I don't get some horrid stomach ailment or disease. Between the two days we had pretzels with cheese and ice cream, twice, (I justify by saying it is for Jara) a taco, Jed goes for the pork on a stick from people who I'm pretty sure only speak two words "money and napkin", a corndog (also for Jara), a funnel cake (Jed), and the aforementioned Indian taco. In the picture Jara is enjoying an olive, you have to look close.

Yes, we are dorks I admit it.

Tried and True Traditions

Let me tell you a story about a tradition embraced by my grandmother, Ruth Leavitt…
This tradition begins around Christmas occasionally as early as Thanksgiving and continues well on into the new year throughout the spring and dies out sometime thereafter, if we are lucky. You may be asking yourself what tradition can last through so many seasons. May be you even want to start this tradition for you and your own family. The tradition of the… YULETIDE HAM!!! Grandma in her ever practical state of mind would make a ham sometime in the fall/winter season and then continue to recycle it’s goodness for many more festival occasions. The Maddy family most often being the recipients/victims of this joy. To see the sheer horror on my cousins faces when grandma would say “Come over we’ll have dinner, I’ll pull out the ham” was priceless. However, being the hungry, growing boys that they were, I think they may have savored the ham more than I imagined or they just fed it to grandpa, the cat, or possibly even a cow. The essence of ham baking in an oven brings back a nostalgic feel for me and I can eat ham lovingly the first occasion but beyond that is asking a lot. It is very rarely I’ll turn down a free meal, but I have been known to turn down ham being resurrected from the freezer in July. My grandma passed away this fall but I couldn’t let her traditions be buried with her. I asked my mom, who does not feel as strongly about ham as my granny, if she would be making an Easter ham. The answer was not affirmative in nature so I took it upon myself. However, having never bought, cooked or served ham to anyone I was a little naive and ill-prepared for the process. When I went to the store there were many kinds of ham: bone-in ham, picnic ham, boneless ham, shank ham (is that really mean butt), ham-hock, and finally something I could identify, spiral-sliced mapley brown sugary goodness, you- can’t -screw-this-up-ham. I went with the latter choice. All eight hundred pounds of it. When I put it in the basket the basket heaved and people turned to see what kind of shopping cart abuse I was committing. I did my best to channel my inner granny and cooked my ham with all the tender loving of a first time ham cooker and it came out lovely, until Jed cut my spiral-sliced ham the wrong direction. This was a small hang-up however, because everyone proclaimed it was wonderful and each kindly took a small piece, they assured my they just wanted to make sure everyone got enough. I had very kind guests and to reward them I sent them all home with a doggie bag of premium ham and assured them that we still have plenty left over to freeze and bring out on fourth of July!