Year 6, August 9th - 11th, 2021: First Days of School 2021-2022

 Good evening, campers! How did your first day of school go today? Pretty average, you say? Ok. I'll take that. Actually, despite some bossiness from the middle two, it felt rather peaceful to spend time with the kids rather than looking at my phone. I think I just needed a break from wearing my IAHE hat! Maybe that's just what my problem is! Feeling burnt out! Maybe it's related to having that silly ADHD and that I need to switch my priorities every 2-3 months to keep me motivated. And that's totally cool and doable. I can rotate them. 3 months of focusing solely on IAHE stuff left me feeling neglectful of my children. And now, well, I'm ready to sit down with them, sort of, I didn't want to correct their math today, so I Justin corrected his. Keturah tried to do hers without watching the DVD, which was silly because it was all new to her. Justin is redoing Algebra 1, and he was able to do it without rewatching the DVD. I'm allowing him to speed through it as he sees fit. I just want him to really know it before we do Algebra 2, especially for the SAT and ACT. He got 100% on his page today. Abishai didn't touch math today and in fact, he threw fits today. He looked at papers but didn't really want to do them. We did 3/4 of a day's worth in 3/4 of an hour, so that's promising. I let a lot of stuff go though.

I tried to make it fun with "opening ceremonies" and using a "torch" (aka flashlight) because the summer olympics just finished by they weren't buying that. I listed out my expectations and we quickly went through the morning basket things like rules of the household as reminders. The older kids remembered a bit of the CC stuff even, so that's wonderful! But they couldn't remember the "THINK" before you speak acronym. Exactly my point.  Keturah was definitely crabby. I had Abishai pray for our school year. We did get started about 9:40 and stayed somewhat on track all day surprisingly. I did take a few minutes to check my phone here and there but tried not to do a major email check until lunch time and that helped. Doing Abishai's work at 1pm meant I didn't feel as rushed in the morning, but that won't work long term. The real routine won't take shape until Justin figures out a job schedule. And it might just be that he has to read the history book and do the written assignments on his own, and we find time to do some shorter read alouds at a different time that I want to discuss together. This was the point of the history book last time around where trouble was brewing with Benaiah and he had to be taught separately. I ended up doing a whole different thing with him and I don't think he learned anything that semester. He did learn a lot in his world history class in high school though. I might use the same book with Justin but in a different way. It focuses on some biographical information and decades and such. I'm going to keep the ins and outs of the wars to a minimum because they are studied in depth all the time and there's so many documentaries and first hand accounts (well not so much anymore) and memorials to those wars that it's hard to miss it. Plus pop culture of all these decades and vintage styles and basically the modern era is just well known in my opinion through movies and books. Especially when we can easily obtain videos and photos of the modern era so it's much more tangible. So, I'm not sure what it's all going to shake out to be yet. But math and science and English, we can do those because they are indepedent studies.

 Oh, but It took Justin twice as long as it did Keturah. And Justin had his phone this morning. So guess who won't have their phone tomorrow? They both won't have their phones tomorrow. Justin did take his medication. If he needs music, he can use the tablet and YouTube. No phone. Or find a radio station that still works on Dad's old radio alarm clock from the '90's. Or borrow Keturah's cd player and take a few soundtracks from the shelf. Yes, we are old school. We manage thanks. 

Oh, I know why Abishai's work didn't get done this morning. Mr. Rick came and fixed the kitchen outlet that was arcing! We weren't really supposed to be using it. And I knew that. But we did and I was praying we wouldn't burn the house down or do permanent infrastructure damage. And we hadn't. He fixed it in less than an hr. But we were all curious, even Jared who had come home to explain the problem. But I had taken extra time to clear off the counter, scrub that nasty stick dust that accumulates in greasy kitchens (how embarrassing!), and then put it all back together again afterwards, so I lost a bit of time there. 

And all was fine and dandy until I sat down for quiet time. I made a phone call that I should have returned on Friday and left that message. I could have called the dermatologist about the itchiness and red newss around the wounds on my legs but didn't. I also could have all the case worker on this months old fin aid app from St. Francis but tried to write out a letter to them instead. Well, 90 minutes later, I realized that the numbers still didn't match up between what was on the check next the routing number, what was on our bank statements, and what would have showed up on their bank statements. Super frustrating. Now I have to back and make a phone call to ask for a slight extension so I can get this put together with explanation. 

Meanwhile, all this stress is causing my skin to crawl and I'm constantly itchy. My word. And I can't think of anything I can tell take that will help all of it without causing problems someone else like with restless legs or excessive sleepiness. And now my calf is acting up again. I can never stay on top of it all. Thus, I stretch at 2 am and end of dozing off on the floor of the bathroom until I can rouse myself up enough to head to the couch so I don't wake up Jared in bed. 

Anyways, I guess you would say it was a good day. Full, but not frantically so. We got the ball rolling. I let the older kids just write in their assignments any which way they wanted. They seemed to be able to write it down in a format that was close to what I would have done so that's cool. I'll take it. Just as long as there's a traceable pattern at the end of it, then I'm good. 

Meanwhile, Keturah skated down the hill three times and then back up without falling, woot! Woot! She said it was much easier than she had first thought. Daddy had encouraged her to do it, too. 

I'm trying to think if there was anything else, but I don't think so. We had a mixture of all the leftover fresh vegetables thrown into a frying pan with some oil and skinless smoked sausage for dinner. Pretty easy. Got the kids to eat purple carrots and kale, lol. Oh and a new blend of black rice, black quinoa,, and black lentils. I thought it was pretty good. Then I had a whole team IAHE mtg and saw a ton of new people. The picnic should be interesting trying to get to know new people as well. Hopefully the new blood will help to calm Jared's fears about the extreme vocalists of the group. We'll see. Lots going on behind the scenes, too. That went fine. Now onwards to the next thing..

Care package heading out for someone's birthday tomorrow. I'm sending to her ON her birthday instead of getting it to her FOR her birthday, but whatever. At least I'm sending something.

And ad on Instagram for IAHE?! Say what?! I saw one on FB but now on Instagram?! Cool!

Boy was trolling with me with a bucket on his head!

Interesting that one of my favorite bloggers is only 4 years ahead of me in homeschooling years. I look up to her so much but there's really not a huge gap between us in years. Maybe that's why it's still so relatable? Pretty cool! We are starting our 15th year of homeschool.

See, I tried to make it fun!

We didn't take photos today because the weather was iffy. Hopefully tomorrow before the sun gets really hot.

It kind of looks like mini black beans. And you can taste the black lentils, but it's not too beany flavored because of the two other grains, black rice and black quinoa. I thought it was a good blend. Cooked up pretty nicely. The other stir fry type veggies we had left went into the pan with the skinless smoked sausage.

Well, I've been putzing with email and Facebook so it's really late. But school went fine this morning and they all cooperated with school photos this morning. Abishai through a bit of a fuss when we were finishing close to lunch time because I think he was hangry. So, we will start with math tomorrow to avoid that. I was going to go run a few local errands this afternoon, but took a solid 2 hr nap instead. I had permanent charlie horses in my calves and my whole body felt creepy crawly, so I took an extra gabapentin and I think it knocked me out. It did calm the nerves though so I think I'll be making an appt with my pcp now that it will be covered 100%. I was supposed to sign up for one, but no one from the office has called me. Oh well. I might switch the restless leg medication back to gabapentin. We'll see.  I just know that I don't sleep well and I'm exhausted.

Other happenings today. Keturah went roller blading and fell after she got down the hill and got a pretty good open wound on her right hand. She washed it and said it was clean but then I had to go in and really scrape out the dirt. She couldn't get past the pain herself. But there was no way I was leaving all that dirt from the road under the skin on the edges. Then we wrapped it up. It's about the size of a quarter. It's going to take a good two weeks before she sees some improvement. Her legs got scratched up, too. She was shaking when she got home but not in tears, thank goodness. She said her ear phones fell down first and then handing on her left hand and then her right now. Ok, that's not what your injuries say, but ok. She said nothing else is sore yet or injured enough for bandaids It's a good thing we have a variety of bandages and first aid tape and all the things for this type of injury. We just can't go minimalist in a household size like ours. We do reach for it and use it.

Abishai had a decent day and stayed out of trouble. He did ask for extra electronics, and I said no, not this time. He was ok with that. We played the "board" game and he smoked me! He was ahead, and I played a card putting him more even with me, and then he still won! This boy is ruthless when it comes to board games! He thought he was losing but then he figured out his strategy and won anyway. He's too smart! This is why I won't go easy on him with a board game either. He certainly knows how to quickly learn the rules and make them for him. Good grief!

At the end of screen time, Justin felt sick with a migraine and spent the next 2 hrs in the bathroom. He did finally came out and ate some bread. Poor guy. It's a good thing it's hot and the mowing can/should be done in the evening  later this week.

Yes, that 2 hr  nap was wonderful. But now I've procrastinated long enough on everything. It's a little frustrating, too, when you have to wait on certain people to finish a financial aid application. Grrrr.  And I have to redraft that letter and send it in and wait for the results. Sigh.

This is totally how it goes! The floodgate of questions start pouring out, too. Otherwise, there's not much to talk about, is there? Ok, yes, there could be. But it's harder.

Ok, our turn! I used the portrait mode on my phone and they turned out great!

Yes, her best friend is the dog. She takes after her mother.

You can't really see how tall they are when they sit down, but I liked how good this looked altogether. Sweet! Oh, and they all hated using the chalk on the chalkboard. I guess we aren't used to that!

I was just arguing with Jared THIS MORNING about the cicadas! And then I find these cicadas casings. Ok fine. We won't take off the nets yet. But these are the first shells I've found all summer! So much for that infestation everybody talked about. Not in our yard! But I guess it was in other parts of the city just a few miles from us.

Totally empty, just the outer shell. Aren't these so cool?

Totally different insect and very much alive. Still very cool.

Hey, Mom! That's you and Daddy! Yes, buddy, we are in our state magazine because we help out other homeschoolers in our region! The magazine comes out 3 times a year. They do such a great job with it, too! It's free with the $40/yr membership. Tons of other perks, too. The $25 membership gets the digital copy of the membership.

Poor girlie has to do everything with her left hand because she fell on her right while she was roller blading. You'll see the photos of her actual injury tomorrow.

Abishai skunked Mommy at the bored game despite Mommy not letting him have any freebies and using her best moves. Little stinker. He's very good at strategy.

Some of this is my fault. Some of this is also not being able to go to sleep because of restless legs, all over itchiness because of heat or fibromyalgia, some of it is getting up in the middle of the night because of heartburn, and then Abishai waking up a bit earlier, or Jared's alarm clock, etc. Point is, I haven't been sleeping well and it shows.

It's been an all doing but not much to show for it kind of day. I just kept at it with no naps and I still feel behind. I finally sat down for 5 minutes while the pizza finished cooking for supper because it was either that or someone was going to feel my wrath. I don't know if this exists, but I was wondering if there's an emergency anxiety pill I could take when I feel overwhelmed like this. I know it's linked to my lack of sleep, obviously. But I keep coming to the point of being unglued more than I want to be. So either that, or I need to up my overall medication. And go back on my gabapentin. Stuff like that. This is nuts. I'm stressed out no matter what I do. I don't know. At least Jared transported Justin for me when we realized Justin was supposed to hang out with his small group tonight although it wasn't on the official schedule. He had told me once about it but thought he had reminded me several times. Well, it wasn't written down anywhere in my brain or on my phone so it didn't exist. I had phone calls to return and dinner to clean up. I barely made it out for errands and back in time to make the pizza. And earlier, Abishai had kicked a soccer directly into my face, making my glasses crooked and I had no time to stop in to get those fixed. I will get those done when we see them on Tuesday for Abishai's follow up eye exam. I just can't squeeze it in anywhere else. I don't care that they are only 10 minutes away, there's still traffic patterns to negotiate with. 15 minutes is 15 minutes. And for every 15 minutes I have, I have 10 things I could do for that time slot. So, pick my priority. Yesterday I picked sleep so today I had to pick these errands. And I had to print stuff for the financial aid app instead of doing Keturah's math with her because she claims she can't write with her right hand. Abishai and I fought over math, but we got ours done. Pick and choose, choose and pick. Every single day. Makes me exhausted.

I've decided to just pop this financial aid application in the mail tomorrow on our way out to the fair with the best explanation I've got. And if the lady calls me back tomorrow, I'll just tell her what I did. If she still wants the retirement account information, she'll have to wait until Jared can figure out his login and I can email her the document. It will get postmarked tomorrow and hopefully get down to her on Friday. If not, then by Monday and she'll see the postmark. Good enough. I'm tired of waiting on other people to hand over the paperwork. I got the paystubs. The retirement fund doesn't matter because we can't access the funds anyway and it's not even that much. End of story. Get a grip.

Tomorrow we are going to the state fair and it's supposed to be ok in the morning but steadily climbing into a heat advisory by the middle of the afternoon. So we are leaving as early as we can and meeting up with another mom and three kids for company. Hopefully it will go well and I'll have to lower my expectations of seeing my favorites. Actually, I hope it will distract me from any of my pain and it will keep my kids from whining about the heat. I have a game plan so I'll keep everybody moving. I got plenty of cash as well. Actually, as I type, For King and Country have wrapped up and getting on their tour bus to head to either their next stop or back home. I opted to stay home tonight and I'm glad I did with the heat advisory. I didn't need to be out twice in it. Blech. I'll see them at their next door indoors in climate control and I'll pay big bucks to sit up close. It will be worth it I'm sure. 

Speaking of that, ahem, I just bought myself a big Christmas gift worth, ahem, $100. The pre ordered CD of the new record, Worship Forever. About time for the preorder, too. Ok, to go from recording to release in two months time is crazy! But yes, it includes the CD, the album Still, which I think I may only have the digital version of, not sure on that one, a t-shirt for Worship forever, which is ok, and a signed 36 page exclusive photo book (only 1,000 copies being made) from that night. Now THAT alone, is worth something to me since I didn't bring along the nice camera and all. Ok, actually, that was a bit overpriced. But whatever. No regrets. Unless they put it on sale at Christmas when it doesn't sell out because it's too expensive like the last bundle like this one didn't. Oh well, I was one of the first ones that saw it and bought it. That's what a true fan does. I was there. I got the photos. I got the CD. I'm good. T-shirt will be added to the collection. I will share the Still CD with someone who needs it. And I'll add the autograph to the pile of what, 2 dozen Michael W. Smith autographs I have? Lol. Can't have too many of those. Some I got in real life. Some I have are prints. Some I got in bundles like these. Some I watched as he did them on Instagram, lol. Anyway. It's done.  It perked up my day.

Now onward to the rest of my getting ready to go to the Indiana State Fair 2021.

Well,......We've had the salmon in the fridge for a week and Jared has tried to make the cedar plank but wasn't sure how to put one and one together and cook it and then bam, here it is in the Aldi's flyer.....Jared wasn't sure how to grill it or cook it without the wood actually burning. I'm not sure what he did with it now but he removed the plank from the kitchen and gave me back the towel. The salmon is still in the fridge. Hm,...

When we took Keturah's bandage off this morning, the area was white. I think it was because of the antibiotic ointment and some puss and lack of oxygen. We hadn't wrapped it that tight but it also hadn't gotten any air to it. So we let the wound air out for about 90 minutes and it pinked up a bit. Then we could take some photos and see what was really going on. It already has another layer of skin over it and looks quite interesting. I'm glad we thorouhgly cleaned it out.

It's kind of spongy almost. I've never seen a wound quite like it. Somewhat different than mine with the skin filling in. We used vaseline this time and put the same kind of dressing on it again to keep it moisturized.

See how it's already trying to fill in the hole or gaps? Crazy!

What a baby dog!

It's too hot to play outside so I let them play aside. They were giggling and having fun so I tried to take a video of it. And then, IT happened. I got a face full of BALL. Boys! Boys are so unpredictable! You never know what's going to happen!

This is what happens when you let boys play soccer inside the house. Just what I needed! Crooked glasses!

Hey, what's Grogu doing? Oh, he's sitting on a box having a talk with your friends.

It's even bent this way, too!

Not nice! I'll just have to try to find them back to a semi good position until Tuesday when we go in for Abishai's follow up. I don't have time until then.

Well, that's a cool way to sell a cake.

And, you know you're a real fan when you don't hesitate in your purchase......

Ouch on the price, but I hope that sells out and doesn't go on super discount before Christmas and truly becomes a rarity this time. You just never know. But, I did it. Happy early Christmas to me. It was bound to happen. And I saw preview of some of those photos. They are amazing. I wish they had added a couple of other things because this is a bit overpriced. But oh well. It's worth it. #truefan

What...a.....day.....!!!!!!! First of all, I slept like 3 hrs, so I can't believe I'm still awake and standing. I asked God to sustain me today because I didn't have a clue how I was going to keep going. I knew having another mom and her kids with us was going to help distract me from my pain and keep me motivated and it totally did. Kelly was such a doll and even rubbed my feet when I was tired and said they were hurting. She's one of the most caring persons in the world and we've just started to get along so well. But more on that a bit later. She was the one who reached out and asked if we wanted some companions at the fair today and I'm so glad she did. It made the fair so much more fun! 

I of course was anxious then to get there on time to meet up with Kelly, Kia, and the other two tag alongs, because I hate being late. It was my fault for being late, but really, it's ok, we weren't making it for a certain performance or anything. It was fine. We got there a bit after 10am and all was well. We started off at the Lego nature exhibit and had a great time looking at all the Lego sculptures of different animals and flowers and people and even a wheelbarrow! I felt kind of bad, but I tried to hurry everybody along. They wanted to play with the Legos they had out to play with and of course Abishai would play for hours if I let him. And the building was air conditioned so of course we wanted to stay in there. Next up was the animal barns. We found the cow barns and Abishai liked them. He made sure to stay in the middle of the walkway but asked questions about their number tags and pointed out that some were smaller and some were bigger. I knew he would find them more interesting now that he was older and he wouldn't be bored like the teens who have seen cows a million times. Then we moved back outside and saw the double decker carousel which was gorgeous! It wasn't running, but we walked all the way around it and looked at all the animals! A gorilla and a humming bird, and a tiger, and a lion, etc. The Children's Museum one has some great ones like this, too. But the details on this one were awesome! Then a quick potty break and we criss crossed and found the swine barn. We saw the champion and biggest pigs, said hi to the different kinds of pigs, saw one that looked like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, and then saw the 5 week old piglets. We didn't see any sheep because I think that barn is further back behind one of the others and so are the draft horses. But we did get to see the cart racing horses do a race! That was cool! Racing is such a quiet sport. Just a plod plod against the sand of the track. It's kind of soothing! And just quite different than the loud noises of the motor sports. Keturah and I enjoyed that.

After we passed the racing horses, we head up to the Family Fun Zone to see the bubble tower, do the Little Hands on the Farm, see the animals in Animal Town, race ducks, and eat some lunch. Actually, we ate lunch first. The bubble tower was cool and kept ALL the kids occupied for a few minutes. The kids eventually went over to see the horse at the Animal Farm while I finished up my lunch. Keturah found out that the horse had been there for just a few days and it was a 25 yr old retired police horse. The horse looked beautiful and in great shape, definitely not in need of retirement. I think it was a quarter horse based on the signage. They little then went through and did the Little Hands on the Farm thing where they pick up a bag of corn and soybeans, pick up an egg from the hen house, pick up produce, put the soybeans in a bucket as biofuel for their pedal tractor ride, feed the pig with their corn, picked up milk from the cow, picked up wool from the sheep and then took everything to market in exchange for pretend money to pick up feel food as a price. Abishai picked juice. The other two picked Fritos. Oh, and they got to pick up pretend manure and move haybales. They worked very hard for it. And then I wanted to see this duck race thing so we walked over to it just in time to take a bleacher seats. It was a cute little show where some audience members hold on to mallard ducks and then release them to race to the end of a shallow pool. Who knows who will win, but it's a cute little show. And everybody gets a prize. The winner gets a hat. After they crowned a champion, they offered it up to anyone who wanted to do it for $5, plus you get a duck whistle. So of course Abishai wanted to do it. The other mom didn't think it was worth it, but she gave in when I let Abishai do it. I thought he might want to do it instead of eating ice cream or fried foods. So, we did it. Except I was the one holding the mallard duck. Ok, that was kind of thrilling. I wasn't allowed to think twice about it. Just hand off the duck and let it go when the lady said so. Ok then. We didn't win, but we got the whistle that annoyed us the rest of the day.

After the duck race, the big kids went to get some dippin' dots and to watch some more of the cart racing and Kelly and the three younger kids went through the pioneer village. We actually stepped up to a maple syrup booth made by Mennonites, so I spent my $3 per item on maple cream soda and maple sugar candy. Yum!  I'll save them for later! We took the kids into the building with all the old equipment and displays of how old handicrafts and home cooking were done, kind of like a mini museum of the 1800's. And they loved it! Just the perfect age to ask questions because they hadn't seen all these stuff! They tried their skills on stilt blocks. Abishai went into the mock up (I think, it could have been real), of the John Johnson (of all things) one room cabin that had been on the State Fairgrounds propperty as the original land owners before the city/fairgrounds bought it and he was fascinated by it. It was no bigger inside than the boy's bedroom. There was a chuck wagon parked right outside it, too. And it had a front porch. Pretty cool. We met a real entomologist who told the kids what each insect was in his collection box. Abishai was fascinated by seeing the cicadas up close since we had talked about them so much. This guy's area was set up like an 1920's professor's room at a college or something. Pretty neat. We saw some people having a home cooked meal, some in costume, some in today's modern dress, but all were specifically invited to the meal with real plates and such. I'm glad Kelly wanted to go through that buildng. The kids really enjoyed it.

The next building had the beehive behind plexiglass thing. And then it had this cool VR thing where the kids could plant seeds and water them and try to pick the tomatoes off the vine. It also had this sand table where a topogrpahical type map was projected onto it and when you built up the sand in one area, the light would turn red to signify a mountain or if dug out a deep valley, it would turn blue for water. That was pretty cool. Then the other 3 kids had met back up with us and we continued on as a group. We were getting pretty tired by then and Kelly even noticed that I was hitting the end of my day. We opted for a bit of ice cream at the FFA barn. Abishai had a ice cream sandwhich and I had a tiny bit of ice cream with honey. Keturah had already her fill of a lemon shake up, birthday cake dippin' dots, and fried dough and was feeling sick. Justin had chosen a lemon shake up as well. The lemon shake ups were NOT part of the $3 plan, but oh well. In all, I spent under $40 for the day, so I am way happy for the day. Keturah contributed her own money to her feast and stomachache.

After we finished our ice cream, we stepped into the back of the building so Abishai and the other two young ones could play on the playground. They also have a mini golf course back there and we loved doing that two years ago, but none of the big kids were interested. I told Kelly that yes, I was tired, and it was mostly my feet that hurt, and she told me to take off my shoes so she could rub my feet. She used to physical training and such, so she knew how to do proper feet rub downs and instead of being embarrassed, I just let her do it. Because if someone is willing to do something for you, you just say yes. It's a blessing for them and for you. And I felt so much better and then I was much more willing to take the kids home, grab the boys' bathing suits and drive another 30 minutes to Greenfield so they could swim in a deeper, bigger above ground pool and I could keep talking to my friend Kelly. Because all I was going to do at home was sleep or rest and stare at my messes.

So, crazy it was, I did just that. Normally, I would have really pushed for just staying home. I didn't remind the boys that they were giving up their screen time by going to Kelly and Kia's house. I honestly didn't want the day to end either. I knew it was late. We got to their house after 4pm or was it 4:30 or 5? Maybe it was 5. Because we didn't leave there until like 7:30pm. I told Jared we would be home before he got home from Bible study. That's not like me to stay out that long. But we had dropped Keturah home because of her stomach and so she could help with the dog. Oh yeah, right after playing on the playground at the fair, we walked nearly right across the little street and down the ramp to the infield and across the infield of the dirt track to our car and drove home. We were all done. 5 hrs in the heat. I had no desire to drink a lemon shake up or eat a gluten filled elephant ear. We didn't see all the things we normally see, but that's ok. We can see them next year. We saw different things. The new things. And we still had a great time! The teens got a few minutes of independence. The littles got to experience things on their own time without the whiny, glaring teens saying "we've seen this stuff a hundred times." It was glorious really. We didn't want the day to end. And I didn't look at my phone all day.

I didn't check email or social media for nearly 12 hrs. The lead on the social media team, Kylene did notice I wasn't commenting all day, and it wasn't planned, but it was neat little experiment to see if the world needed me all the time or could I take a little break here and there. And the world didn't explode. And that made me happy today. And relieved. I had about 200 emails to go through. About 100 of them didn't need looked at at all. 50 were answered by Kylene and two other people from the social media team or after looking at them didn't need any response. And then the others were simple responses for the most part. I think I feel like I have a lot of emails because if I respond to something, I then get all the other responses to that response and go back and forth on that one post. But I didn't have those because I never posted a comment. I want to be involved and post, but now I know, I can step away and the team steps in just fine. We can go back and forth and I don't have a bazillion emails to catch up on. It actually took me way less time to go through it than I had anticipated. And my games didn't take that long either. I got a bit of blogging done while I tried to shove food in my mouth and then I had to stay up late to let any heartburn settle. I couldn't help but eat late. Tomorrow I will try to get back to a normal eating pattern.

It was a wonderful, wonderful day of spending time with a new family. We got to know each other much better. And the kids had a blast. They didn't argue or throw fits with each other or with Mom/Grandma or me.No one tried to run away. No one got sick. I'm glad Kelly reached out and I said yes. I wish more people would do that. I wish I reached out more and invited a friend or two to meet up with and go together. I need to think on that some more. And then we get to see them bright and early 14 hrs later for park day near OUR house! Wahoo! 

Indiana State Fair August 12th, 2021 

Well, lucky for us, that means we can bring lunch with us and not spend a fortune! Yeah! And when we got there, I had the bags wide open and the guy just shooed us in no problem. Cool!

Why yes I was one of the very first ones to buy this over priced bundle because well, I'm a one of "those" fans. The photo book WILL be signed and there's "only" 1,000 copies of it. I guarantee you this won't sell out and it will go on sale around Christmas time but I don't care. It will be in my hands before then. That's the point. Sigh. It's still not an over priced cruise or weekend getaway or what have you. I got the purple t-shirt, yes, in large. Actually, all my other t-shirts probably fit me now that came in this or that bundle that are larges. Go figure. And because I pre-ordered, I will be one of the first ones to have the CD. I'm sure the CD itself will be on pre-order by itself soon, too.  Merry Christmas to me!

Our first stop at the Indiana State Fair was the Lego exhibit. We were a little bit behind time wise, so I just had Kelly and the kids walk down to where we came up from the tunnel. Most of the Lego sculptures were of animals or nature and most of the pieces were normal bricks, the 2x2's or 2x4's, not fancy kinds of bricks in the expensive sets. That's how you know it's a good designer. I love how each sign had how many bricks were in the model and how many hours it took. You could tell that it was a much traveled exhibit though because some white pieces looked dingy and dirty. But overall, it was fun to see! Here's the extinct Dodo bird, and it was even on a pedestal!

A basic agriculture scene made I think just for this fair. And put together by the Brickworld team or at least advertising Brickworld. We still can't wait to go to Brickworld again on this very property!

I didn't take photos of every single animals, but there was a LOT. The younger ones seemed pretty memorized by it. The older ones kind of just stood by with their arms folded like, ok, can we move on now. Kelly was reading some of the signs to the younger ones. Abishai liked them and recognized some of the animals from his TV shows on his tablet.

Keturah loved this colorful chameleon.

Aww, check out this polar bear with her three cubs!

There's the third one!

We weren't sure if these whiskers were Lego pieces or not. I don't think they were, but I don't think it matters.

There were actually two of these beautiful monarch butterfly ones. These are tricky because you have to balance them just right. There's probably some metal structure inside them, too, but no outside wiring.

Abishai really liked the fawns and deer family.

Cutest seal on the planet! These were obviously the less tricky ones to make, but still, pretty cool!

A bit dusty, but my mom would have loved this bird bath! Especially that tricky squirrel and and she loves cardinals!

This one was shown on the intro video. There are NO strings holding up that hummingbird! Perfectly balanced on that flower. There might be a metal rod in there somewhere, but that's it. And there were two of these sculptures.

There were two Lego/Duplo play areas for the kids. I know, I know, lots of germs. Kelly and I both had hand sanitizer out and there was plenty of it around the fair as well. The three younger kids actually got along very well for not knowing each other at all. Cassidy is 8, Abishai is 6 1/2 and James is 5. They had such a grand time!

Already giggling together being ants!

Maybe an older sculpture based on the amount of dust in it from traveling, but one of the only non nature ones. A wheelbarrow that looked just like the one my dad had.

What is this? An optical illusion! Clear rods going through it, but what animal is it?

A rhino!

Abishai was actually excited to see the cows! He would have gone right up to them and patted them if I let him. I had to quickly tell him to stay in the middle of the eye and don't shout or touch anything. He's such a perfect age for these kinds of field trips. I need to find some more farms for him and I to go to! This girl was such a beautiful one, too. We saw calves and Abishai kept saying, "Oooo, look at the babies!" That's my boy!

The double decker carousel was also new this year! It was next to the grandstand instead of in with the rest of the carnival rides. It was gorgeous! I tried to slow and down and get a good look at it, too. Although I was the one trying to rush everybody along because I knew if I didn't, we wouldn't make it all the way around the circle. The kids liked pointing out the different animals on it. There wasn't an attendant at it though so we didn't ride it. I was willing to pay for it if there was and it was reasonable. I can do a carousel.

Look! Another hummingbird!

Bunny rabbit!

Tiger!

Gotta see the biggest pigs!

And the piglets! Two years ago the piglets were just a couple of weeks old. This year they were almost 6 weeks' old. Huge difference!

This guy was snorting up a storm and Abishai loved it! I was sure Abishai was going to touch his nose and pet it! And we saw a nice clean pink pig that looked just like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web! And then I realized I had failed to read Charlotte's Web to my kids. Eek!

OOO, this was a cool moment Kelly pulled us off to the side for. There was cart racing that day! We heard the starting bugle and everything! It brought me right back to watching it at the Charlottetown racetrack during Old Home Week and I was able to remind my kids of that! And I had forgotten just how QUIET horse racing compared to Indy Car, lol. Just the plodding of horse beats in sand is so, I don't know, peaceful? Rhythmic? It was awesome. And Keturah loved it, too. She even wanted to go back and watch more of it later, just like her mama did when I went to the fair growing up. I spent as much time as I could at our fair over at the horse barns and animals barns while my sisters and brother rode the rides. I know it's a gambling sport, but if you take that part away and just watch the majesty of horses running and listen to the hoofbeats, ah, it just does something for me.

And here comes the winner!

Sweet. History is everywhere.

Another new attraction this year is the "Bubble Tower." What I didn't expect is that was going to look like a cow's udder. They literally put something up underneath that looked like a cow's udder adn then these streamers that looked like cowhide. And then the mechanism on top looks like an old fashioned milk bucket blowing out the massive bubbles. Oh goodness. Hilarious! Sometimes it wouldn't produce anything. Sometimes it would be a stream of bubbles. The kids seemed interested in it a little bit. I encouraged Justin to join in and he actually did! Then Abishai got made because Justin got the bubbles before he did. Oh well. We ate our lunch right next to the bubble tower. This was in the KidZone.

Next up was Little Hands on the Farm. They actually did have all the things out for it. I wasn't sure because of people worrying about germs, but I'm glad they did. Our little people loved it! You pick up corn and soy beans to feed the animals, gather the eggs and apples,....

....plant tomato seeds and gather vegetables.....

....clean up manure to be used for composting in the garden....restack haybales....

....ride pedal tractors fueled by soybeans...milk cows....

...sell your goods at the market....and then pick a real food treat at the end. All my kids have loved this little course of things to do. Very hands on! One thing we didn't fully do was the new Animal Farm where you can see "one of every kind" of farm animal in some outdoor pens in the KidZone. Now that I think of it. They had something similar to this down near the animals barns two years ago. I think it must have been such a success and kept families out of the actual barns that they moved it to the KidZone this year. Well played, State Fair! Much safer, too.

Next up, this cool show! Duck racing from New Mexico! You literally race mallard ducks! Very entertaining guy and his not so thrilled wife, lol. They picked people from the audience and then you hold onto the duck until they say go. They used funny names and all that. It was cute. And free. And if you didn't get picked to be in the show, you could spend $5 to be part of an aftershow race and get a "duck call" and that's what we did! Abishai loved it! I held the duck of course, which I was nervous about but didn't really have time to be nervous about. I did talk to the duck and give him/her a little kiss because I love animals. Feisty creatures though. And now we have this duck call thing that is loud and annoying but for $5, a great souvenir. Overall, because we choose to go on $3 Thursday, I spent less than $40 at the fair. Not bad.

Kelly wanted to go through Pioneer Village and I hadn't gone through there in awhile so while we did that, Keturah wanted to go get some dippin' dots so she and the other two teens went back down on the other side of the fair. I was nervous at first but they all have phones and Justin is tall and almost 16 and it was a quiet day at the fair with tons of security around. And the littles need to experience things like Pioneer Village without the nagging teens. We had fun! Abishai got to experience these stilts for one. He couldn't get enough of them!

And we got to see this chuck wagon, which we will read about in one of our books next week in school.

Check out these stilts!

We thought this was so so cool! It's the John Johnson cabin! This cabin is a replica of the first home of the family built on this property where the Indiana State Fairgrounds stands from 1820. How cool!

The cabin is no bigger than the boys' bedroom.

Awesome!

Checking out bugs with a real entomologist! Although he's dressed up as someone from earlier in the 1900's. But Abisahi kept asking, "What bug is this? Is this a cicada?" He was very interested in all of it. Pretty neat!

Then in another building he tried a VR thing of how to grow tomatoes. For some reason he had a hard time picking the tomatoes from the vine. But he did well otherwise. We also saw a live beehive through plexiglass. We couldn't find the queen though.

THIS was so neat! It's a container of sand, but there's a projector shining down on it and somehow it can detect how high the sand is. And when the sand gets high, it will changed the color to indicated that it's a mountain like on a topography map! Or if the sand is shallow, it will become a river! Even Justin, Kia and Keturah liked it!

When I read "big wheel" on the website and saw a photo of a tractor nearby, I thought, a really big tractor wheel. But when I got there, I finally put the two together when I saw this. Big Wheel meant Ferris Wheel! Duh! If we weren't already so hot and so tired, I would have investigated how much this cost. I hope Benaiah takes Ava on it. It's all enclosed. I can do a kiddie Ferris wheel. I don't know if I can do regular open Ferris wheel. I have done gondolas up a regular mountain before when I was a teen. I'm not sure how I would feel about this one. Ferris wheels don't usually go too fast, so I don't think I would get sick from it. I would probably just be scared from the height. But it definitely reminds me of the one in London. I love how their ticket booth is a gondala is well. And this is also separate from the regular rides, too. And in front of there are some circus type props that Kelly and I decided were maybe borrowed from the Children's Museum circus exhibit a few years ago, lol. The littles enjoyed those. Abishai wanted to go back and play but he was definitely getting to the point of exhaustion by then. We were on the northside of the fairgrounds and we'd been in the hot sun for 4 plus hrs. Kelly looked at me and said, "Are you getting ready to be done? You look like you're done." And I said, "Yes, how did you know? Lol." And I most certainly was.

We had one more stop to make for some ice cream. I hadn't gotten much extra food to eat. I had given Keturah and Justin some money when they had briefly left us and Justin had spent $7 of it on a lemonade shake up. I hadn't expressly said just buy the $3 items but that's ok. Keturah had spent a lot of her own money on other things and didn't feel well by then. I ended up getting Abisahi this regular ice cream sandwhich at the FFA barn. And I got a 4 oz honey ice cream just for something cool to eat with some calories hoping that it wouldn't make me sick. I had tasted Keturah's lemonade shake up and it didn't taste right to me. And I was not interested in wasting my calories nor my pain level on fried level with the heat of the day. I had bought some $3 maple candy and $3 maple cream soda from the Mennoites in the Pioneer Village, so I did actually get myself a treat for later. It was just too hot. We needed to be done. But after this bit of ice cream, I did let let Abishai go to the back of the FFA barn to play on their playground and let us sit down for a few minutes. Kelly asked to rub my feet after I said my feet, God bless her. I didn't refuse. And because she did that, I was able to make it home and back out to her house so the boys could swim and we could continue to relax together and finish the day well, although we were exhausted. It was a great, great day. Sometimes, having just one other family along to enjoy the day with helps to keep you going, keeps the fighting to a minimum (because who wants to fight in front of other people?), and helps you to try other things you normally wouldn't do. I think it was one of the best days we've had in a long time despite the heat. One that I will cherish, that's for sure. A great way to end our first week of school.

 

The End