Fun at the fair

Last night I went to the fair by myself. M and I thought about taking the kids, but everything's so expensive and since I had a free ticket, we decided I should just go alone which was fine with me. I got to wander around and take photos. I had a blast!! The first thing I did was go to the photography exhibit to check out my pictures that had won ribbons. Imagine my surprise when I saw that 2 more of my photos had won honorable mention in their categories!!

This photo of Kylie chasing a seagull won HM in the "people category":

and this shot of a spider won HM in the "birds, fish, insects, reptiles" category:

I loved looking at the exhibits and took a few photos (go figure)...

The obligatory corndog was eaten...and it was actually really yummy! But the best part of the fair for me is the colors and the lights!

I love the fair!! :-)

My new identity

Forgive me for being MIA the past few weeks. I’ve been trying to get on track with a new schedule. I started training to work at the call center for Bass Pro. Basically we take orders and do all kinds of customer service. If you call the 800 number for Bass Pro, you’ll be talking to one of the people in the call center (maybe even me!!). I’m going to be working evenings, so I’ve been in training in the evenings. The good part is it’s been fun and I’ve met a lot of really cool people and so far the customers have been great (for the most part). The bad part is that I’m wide awake when I get home (around 11) and am not able to get to sleep until around 2am. Soooo…I’ve been really tired lately!! Especially since Connor thinks that when the sun's up we should all be up.

On an entirely different note...I entered some photos into the photography competition at the Ozark Empire Fair. I got 3rd place in the "cats and dogs" category for this photo of Geordie (I do love this handsome, sweet boy!!!):3rd place in the "other animals" category for this photo of a tiger at the Tulsa Zoo:

and 3rd place in the "nature/sky" category for this photo of the sunset over Tablerock Lake:

I honestly wasn't expecting to win anything...it was just fun to enter!! Now I'm soooo stoked I actually won 3 ribbons! This is so COOL!!

Last weekend we discovered that a sunflower seed from the birdfeeder fell into one of our pots and now we have a sunflower growing! Kylie was soooo excited about this and insisted I take her picture with the sunflower...Then we were even more excited when we discovered a teeny tiny praying mantis was hanging out on the sunflower! I tried to get some pics of him, but they didn’t come out very well...I need a macro lens (hint, hint to anyone with about $500 extra to spare...)!!!

I actually went to Nathanael Greene park on a photo shoot last weekend. Haven't done that in a while. It was really hot and humid, and a lot of the flowers weren't blooming, but I did manage to get a couple shots of butterflies.

This is a Snout Butterfly:This is a Red-spotted Purple:A few nights ago the kids and I pulled out the sofa bed downstairs. They decided we should all sleep on it, which never happened because they were having way too much fun goofing around. Here they are with Beary (Kylie's bear) and Pickle Peckle (Connor's elephant):

We tie-dyed shirts this afternoon...but I'll post pics of those tomorrow. Right now I'm gonna go help Michael get the kids into bed and maybe go have a beer. :-)

Fun on the 4th

The weird thing about living in Missouri as opposed to Cali or Nevada…and maybe it’s not weird so much as different…is that we can set off fireworks here if we’re outside the city limits. (We can also burn on our property if we’re outside of the city limits which is also weird to me! A bonfire in the backyard? Sure! Go for it!.) The fireworks stands start going up the 2nd week in June and there’s one on every corner! Kind of like the Christmas tree lots in December. I love fireworks. Love watching the lights in the sky. Love seeing the awe on the kiddos’ faces as they watch them. I just don’t particularly like having the fireworks set off close to me.

I think it’s left over from spending 38 years in a flammable part of the country where we couldn’t have fireworks at all. It’s the whole fear-of-setting-something-on-fire-only-to-have-everything-destroyed syndrome. When we burn in the backyard, I make sure M has the hose close by and ready just in case.

The first summer we were here, Michael was soooo excited about getting some fireworks, but I talked him out of it. Didn’t want anyone getting an eye shot out. And what if we set something on fire?? Well, all of our neighbors had fireworks, and while we got to watch some pretty cool stuff, I still felt bad because Michael had had his heart set on shooting some rockets that July.

So, needless to say, the last 3 summers, we’ve had fireworks. It started out with just a few. Now it’s up to a LOT. Michael’s really careful and we make sure to keep the kids away from them. Except for the sparklers. They love the sparklers!!!
Yesterday, to kill time before it got dark, we went out and caught about 50 fireflies in the backyard. Totally fun since both Kylie and Connor were catching them like crazy. Once it got dark, we went out front to the driveway and started shooting off our fireworks. The neighbors always seem to have this competition on the 4th: the bigger and louder the better. It benefits us because we get a personal fireworks show! I dunno why we even spend money on the stupid things! But the kids loved it and we had fun and stayed up late. No eyes were shot out. No fires were started. And I made sure the hose and the bucket full of water were close by...just in case.

Kids catching fireflies...Kids with sparklers... A fountain with the moon in the background...Thank you cool neighbors...Hope you had a safe, fun and firework filled 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day!!

Hope you have a safe and fun 4th of July!

This week...

...we've watched the chipmunk on the deck

and on the feeder

and carrying his full cheeky load of seeds.

We watched a purple martin feed a dragonfly to her babies.

We've caught fireflies

and watched them glow in a jar.We went to Celebration City in Branson where we saw the big John Deere bearand cooled off in the shadeand in the water fountains

and on the log ride (Kylie and Connor were behind Michael).While at Celebration City we went on some fun ridesand watched dogs jump for frisbeesand tried on funny hatsand watched fireworks.We've seen grey tree frogs on the pooland a baby toad hopping around the pooland big toads hopping on the driveway and in the front yard.We bought a ton of fireworks for the 4th, but since Kylie and Connor couldn't wait, we lit some a little bit early.

Happy July!!