Skipping around

I know I already blogged August 14 & 15 – our anniversary weekend. I’m going to skip ahead to August 18. Yes, I know I haven’t done August 13, 16, or 17. I just knew you would give me a hard time about that. I’ll get back to those. They were just regular days. But August 18 was our day at the fair!

For some reason, I have about 57 pictures of a cow giving birth, but only a couple of my kids. I guess I figure I see them every day…

1. Sarah and the art work she entered at the fair
2. Friend Holly singing on stage in Kids Zone at the fair
3. View of ferris wheel from the grandstand with my new zoom lens! No cropping!
4. View of Mount Baker from the grandstand – again, no cropping!
5. Oops. I don’t have a number 5.
6. A lasso-twirling, horse-riding, quick-snapping trickster in the horse show at the grandstand
7. Self-explanatory
8. Holly thinking, “Mrs. Ball, why is that gigantic lens pointed at me again?”
9. Sarah & Holly at the horse show
10. Cow beginning to give birth. I made it tiny so it doesn’t gross anyone (coughedcoughballcough) out. That’s the bag of amniotic fluid beginning to emerge there.
11. And the final picture. I decided to spare you all the stuff in between. You’re welcome.
12. All the kiddos in the 4-H horse barn. That place was great. All the kids worked so hard to keep it neat and clean and to decorate and all that. Great job!
13. Trying to pet a giant Clydesdale
14. One of a gazillion pictures of dahlias. That’s an awesome display in there.

Sarah didn’t win a ribbon for her art at the fair, but we think it turned out beautiful and wins the grand prize. What truly wins the grand prize is Sarah’s character. Our friends were voting for her for the “viewer’s choice” award and Sarah said to them, “You know you’re supposed to vote for your favorite artwork, not your favorite person.”

Holly sang beautifully in the fair, as she usually does. It’s a privilege to hear her sing.

The cow giving birth thing was pretty cool. We walked into the dairy barn and I noticed a crowd of people gathering over on the other side. That’s always a sign that something big is going on. We headed over there and the cow was in the beginnings of labor. I had never in my life seen such a thing and the girls were all for staying to watch. After a while, the farmer came and pulled the calf because people, including us, were getting impatient. Thanks, Jon. Elise’s favorite part of the fair was “watching the baby cow get out of its mommy’s tummy.” Apparently she had it all figured out. Bethany loved it and asked a zillion questions. Sarah got a little squeamish about it at the end – she has her father’s genes.