Fair Weather Fun

It’s that time of year. Temperatures have dropped … slightly. We’re still getting into the 80s here and there, but mostly we stick between mid-60s and lower 70s. Not too shabby. People are getting sick. Yay. For a few weeks now, one or more of my children have been hacking quite a bit, or dabbing at their noses, or for one brief spell, puking. Despite all of that, we’ve also been having a lot of fun. On Veteran’s Day, we went as a family to see Despicable Me 2, which we very much enjoyed. Illness kept us away from church for a couple of Sundays. On one of those Sundays, we went on a nice long drive, which I haven’t done in quite a while. That was nice and made our Sunday feel more like a day of rest than it does when we go to church, no doubt about that. Within the last couple of weeks, Peter has started taking an arts and crafts class that is just for the holiday season. He was excited about the class and said he wanted to do it, which marks one of the first times he’s pushed for something he didn’t expect Edison to be a part of. I’m glad to see Peter branching out on his own. He’s an adorable kid, inside and out.

A highlight from the last couple of weeks would have to be our trip to the North Florida Fair. We’ve gone to the fair pretty much every year here in Tallahassee, but this year was a rather different experience. Peter has been very reluctant to try things in years past. Two years ago, I wrote about the trauma Peter experienced at the fair. Since that time, he hasn’t dared go on any rides other than carousels and Ferris wheels. (This has made our numerous visits to Wild Adventures somewhat pointless for him.) But this year Peter was eager to branch out. He went on a ton of stuff, including – believe it or not – a kiddie roller coaster! And Creegan, being our most spirited child, went along with everything his brothers did, including the roller coaster! Creegan even burst into tears when he wasn’t tall enough to go on something with Peter. I loved that everyone in the family was involved with doing things, rather than having Melanie and me take turns going on things with Eddie while the rest of the family waits. That’s kind of what it’s been in years past. We’ve always had fun, but this was really awesome in comparison.

Here are two of the very few photos I got at the fair. Our camera battery was on the verge of death, which we didn’t realize until we got to the fair and started taking pictures. It died on us after a few shots. What a crapper.

We had planned to leave the fair by 8 p.m., but that didn’t happen. We didn’t really get out of there until about 9:20 p.m., which is after we cut things short and denied Eddie and Peter the opportunity to go on more rides. Creegan fell asleep almost as soon as he was put into his car seat. Meanwhile, the rest of us were quite hungry. We had splurged and eaten a red velvet funnel cake at the fair, but now we wanted dinner. Edison remembered that we had stopped at Little Caesar’s on our way home from the fair last year, so he wanted to do that again. (He’s very into tradition and knowing what to expect.) We happily agreed. Melanie and I decided we’d stop and get the kids a cheapo pizza, and she and I would order some Chinese food from a restaurant that is practically across the street from our apartment. (They have the best Chinese food we’ve discovered outside of Utah, and it might be my very favorite of anywhere at this point.) Things then got a little bit crazy. I called the Chinese restaurant; they answered and told me that they had closed about ten minutes earlier but that they would cook me a meal nonetheless. I found that incredibly generous of them. A few moments later, I pulled up to Little Caesar’s only to discover that they had closed at 9 p.m. It seems Tuesday night was not made for late meals. The boys were devastated at the thought of missing out on the cheese pizza they had been promised, and so I quickly called Pizza Hut and put in an order for takeout. The pizza would be ready in 15 minutes, but the Chinese food would be ready in about 10. I didn’t want to keep the folks at the Chinese restaurant waiting, since they were doing me a special favor. But Pizza Hut was officially behind us and we would have to backtrack to it. We decided to press forward to the Chinese restaurant, pick up the Chinese food, and then go back for the pizza. That’s what we did. It worked out quite well in the end. The pizza looked super good, better than usual. Our Chinese food was also exceptionally good that night. I think in both cases, we got piping hot fresh food because we were ordering at such a late hour (for a Tuesday night, anyway). Eddie and Peter stayed up quite late that night, but it was really fun. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Fair thee well. LOLOLOLOLOL!!!