I decided to try something new this year. I'm working on this ambitious embroidery advent calendar. At the rate I'm going, I won't be done in time for Christmas. I've been juggling too many other projects as well.
A month or so ago, Luke told me that he would really like to go on a road trip. I think this boy has 'wander foot', but he has been afraid to mention it because he knew how financially tight things have been. For some reason, I decided that we really should go on a trip together while Peter and Brandon were out camping.
I was able to find a cute place to stay that cost half of what a hotel room would. It had quirks, but we were only there for one night. Luke really loved being able to pick where we went out to eat. It was fun to see him excited about making choices.
We did a lot of reading books while we were away. It was nice. It was also nice to come home and sleep in our own beds though. I think going away makes you appreciate what you've got at home.
We decided there are a few things that we really need to be comfortable. Those items are: a bathroom in the room, two queen beds, a place in the city. Luke said he isn't a country kid like me. The bathroom smelled like 'old lady' which was nostalgic for me, and miserable for Luke.
A couple of ladies on the fair board made the trip up to SLC to attend the State Fair. Our goal was to see some specific ways they do things. For example: what table setups do they have, how do they manage flies and ants on the food, do they get a representative of entries from across the state? Also, how are their garbage cans spread out, how do they place visual maps, and what do their entry tags look like. We were able to see all of these things plus more.
At one point, I had a chance to talk with some of the volunteers. Come to find out they aren't volunteers. They get paid $15/hour with shifts that last 6-8 hours long. We had a tight schedule while we were there so we weren't able to see everything. What we did see was pretty amazing things - including two ladies that were making bobbin lace. I found out they have a group that meets on Saturdays at the Provo library. I am so tempted to go.
I'm already planning to go and spend more time at next year's State fair because we didn't even have a chance to look at any of the animals. Sadness. Here is a few of the things I found most amazing.
It's so weird to realize that the month is over already. I don't know how that happened! The corn has been very happy this year. You can't even see the house in this background. It's crazy to me how tall it's gotten.,
At the beginning of my summer break, I was reading the Liahona and stumbled upon a story of President Kimball. This part of the story struck a chord deep within me:
As was the case with President Kimball, reaching for and achieving a challenging goal at a young age can bring feelings of confidence and satisfaction to serve us throughout life.
While pondering on what challenging goal I could do, I decided to make a goal to walk 100 miles during my summer break from work. It took a lot of early mornings (the only way to walk for an hour when daytime temps were in the 100's), and a lot of pushing deep for motivation. This past Saturday I made it to 100 miles. I'm proud and a bit amazed. It feels good to accomplish something that seemed to be too challenging in the beginning.
The Utah County Fair is epic, absolutely epic. There is no other word to describe it. I really love getting to know so many volunteers that come to serve during the fair. I also love our fair board members that give up SO much of their time during fair week. I love all the entries, exhibits, and fun events. The food is also pretty great - between the snacks, and the food vendors we all gain weight during this week. I have only one regret - this year I made the mistake of relying on caffeine to help me with extra energy. I won't be doing that ever again. It was awful trying to get off of that energy high. I hope that the people that come down to the fair could sense how much the fair board loves doing this for them.
This is the fair office where I live for the week. I have t-shirts and meal vouchers for all my volunteers. Plus, lots of snacks/drinks. We went through 16 Costco size containers of water this year. This year I also got a local grocery store to donate a box of apples (still feeling grateful about that), and we bought 3 large bunches of bananas from Costco too. Not shown is all the ice-cream sandwiches, popsicles, and drumsticks that are in the freezer.
The very first day I walked into the office I immediately saw this little tiny Jesus. It's a thing right now for people to buy these and put them in random places. It was fun to have him in there the whole week.
These are my Jr Fairboard members. They are teens in the community who volunteer at least 25 hours during the fair. I am their advisor. I love and appreciate each of them so much. This year we had a 'rat' theme. It was just a silly way to bring some pizazz to the fair. If you zoom in on the back of our shirts you will see we all got a 'title'.
