Last day of the County Fair

Today was the last day of the County Fair. Which it always makes me a little sad because we really enjoy our County Fair. We had to go in the morning and pick up Keere's premium's, ribbons and the money she had won. We started a tradition last year of having Keree get her picture taken with the premium she won Best of Show with. So here is her Dream, Believe, Love sign made out of recycled newspapers and magazines. 

County Fair Talent Show

This evening, was the County Fair Talent Show. This is Keree's 3rd year participating (she missed last year because we were out of town), she is also on the record books as being the youngest to ever compete at the age of 3. There was over 30 acts this year competing and Keree drew the #11 spot. We were also thrilled that my Aunt P was able to join us for the evening. Keree was so cute when she got on stage, she sang "I make my own sunshine" and even had a few dance moves to it. There was so much applause when Keree came off stage. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good still pictures because their lighting in there is so wonky that all of them indeed up either blurred or super dark. I did take a video also, so we at least have that. 

 It was after 9pm, when they finally announced the winners. We honestly was shocked by who the winner was, actually the entire crowd was shocked. But I had seen her Mom greet one of the judges before the competition started and they were old friends. Keree's scores were amazing except from the one judge. From Keree's scores and talking with the others that competed about their scores, she was either in 4th or 5th place this year. Honestly, it doesn't matter except for those who the audience really thought deserved to get something. A couple of people asked me if Keree was sad because she didn't win. I told them, she doesn't care, she got a ribbon and she knows she did a good job. I mean look at that smile, she's so proud of her accomplishment.

Opening Night of the County Fair

After doing a little bit of school this morning, we spent the rest of our day waiting for it to be 5 pm, so we could head out to the County Fair. Keree was so excited and couldn't wait to see how her premiums did. My Mom and I was curious to see how our Scouts did with their entries. We were so thankfully to see that all of them at least won a ribbon.Now Keree had over 70 entries, she got mostly 1st place awards and she 

also won Best of Show in the 18 & under Arts category. We were so proud of her. Her Bandanna dress got 1st place. Here seams are a little wonky but it just proved she really used the sewing machine and sewed it herself.

 Both of these t-shirts are hers, the brown one was a decorated t-shirt, which she added beads too the bottom of it. The other t-shirt was her tye-died one, she used the sharpie marker and rubbing alcohol technique so she was able to create some really awesome hearts all over it.

 This is her Crossstitch entry. I had gotten the idea off another blog (wish I could remember where I saw this because I would love to give credit to them). They had used checked dish towels for their Scouts to do crossstitch with. This way it created larger x's for them to stitch. Keree made this towel for her Great-Grandma's birthday in October.

 We are currently learning about the solar system and this is a mobile we created. It was a perfect entry into the Fair.

We had such a nice time walking around afterwards. Keree kept telling me that she would go on the boat ride this year, along with a few others. I had to laugh because I know Keree, I knew there was no way she was going to do it. When we got closer, she started to panic. Finally, she stopped dead in her tracks and goes "no, that doesn't look safe to go on." I chuckled because she also isn't tall enough to ride this anyway. We left the fair without riding any rides or playing any games.

Fair Entries Turn-In Day

This morning, we got up bright and early. We wanted to be at the County Fair office within the first hour to turn in Keree's entires. We also let our Daisy Scouts enter a few items, so we also had all there stuff to be tagged also. Keree had a total of 75 premiums to enter, which sort of amazed us also when we started counting. Once all the paperwork was done at the Fair office, it was then time to start the tagging. Tagging amazingly only took us about 2 hrs.  Here is Keree with a few of her premiums after we were finished tagging. 

As we do every year, we took Keree's picture by the Fair Entries sign. I swear she hadn't grown at all since last year.

 On our drive home, we stopped and picked up some lunch because we were starving. When we got home, we were walking up our sidewalk and spotted this DREADED CREATURE!! Thankfully it seems we caught this Tobacco Hornworm early on and it hadn't done too much damage to our tomato plant. It's amazing to think that in all my years growing tomatoes, it isn't until I move here that I discover this damaging creature. So, I used two pieces of paper and scooped him off our tomato plant and threw him in the road. I just can't bring myself to killing them, so the road seemed like the best place....far away from my tomato plant and he may just get run over by a car or a bird will eat him.

 I spent my afternoon and evening working on some crafty stuff, my Mom spent her's sewing and Keree spent her's building. She was so proud of her tower that she just had to take a picture of it.

A Giant Box

Of course we are still in a heat advisory. I gotta say I'm sick and tired of this 100+ degree weather and really hoping that heading North this weekend we will get a small break. Heck, anything under 90 degrees sounds cool right now. We spent our day finishing up Keree's County Fair entries. Tomorrow is the first day to turn in your entries and so far Keree is up to 40 something. Also in the mail was a giant box from Keree's Great-Grandparents. For some reason they think because my Mom and I don't have normal 9-5 jobs that we are poor. Ok, money is tight but heck, isn't most of the world's money tight right now. Inside the box was some new clothes (tshirt, skirts, jeans), hair headbands, two new lunch boxes, a Kai-Lan book (which Keree said her YeYe picked out just for her) and finally some glue and a dish rag for me. I swear they spent just as much to ship the package as they did buying all the goodies. But it made them happy and it made Keree happy, so that's all that mattered. After going through Keree's giant box, we sat outside a short while before we headed back in and got back to work. We spent our evening working and watching Wednesday night tv (Keree's favorite show, The Middle)before heading to bed.

County Fair Day 1

We got up and got going quite early. We still had stuff to set-up before the Fair opened today. Keree as always is so well behaved, she helped when we needed helped, watched movies and drew pictures. Keree even laid down for awhile, I was hoping she would fall asleep but she fought it tooth and nail. Which wasn't a good thing considering she was in the Talent show this evening. Finally around 530p, we called it quits for a nap and just hoped for the best. Around 6pm, when the fair opened, they had a Quarter hunt for ages 3-12. I'm thankful they broke it down into age division, so the oldest age group of 12-10 went first, then ages 9-7 and then the youngest group, which it turned out it was only Keree and another Little Girl. Keree found 75 cents and then called it quits. As soon as we were done, we hurried inside and changed Keree into her Talent Show outfit. Because the two people we asked to help backed out at the last minute, we ended up closing up our booth while she performed. We tried to think of every way to stay open but my Mom was the one helping Keree onto stage, while I taped and took pictures. When we got back there, I stood in-line with Keree so she could choose what number she would be in the line-up. She ended up drawing number 13. I really wish we could have drawn a more earlier number because I was scared Keree would fall asleep. Well considering that each act last around 4 minutes, it was almost 8pm before it was time for Keree to take the stage. She was so exhausted by then. When she got up on stage she started singing really good, but when she realized she missed a line, she got a glazed over look of panic and exhaustion on her face. I felt so bad for her because there was nothing we could do to help her out. She didn't look out at the crowd, so she didn't see my Mom or I and stayed fixated on the judges. As soon as she got off stage, she crawled into my arms and kept trying to fall asleep. We got to walk around at that time for a short bit and got to see how well Keree did with her Fair entries, she ended up winning ribbons on 15 out of the 17 she entered. And out of those 15, most of them are 1st place ribbons. She got so excited seeing all the ribbons she was getting. I'm guessing she'll be even more excited when she finds out, she gets a monetary award with every ribbon she won. Luckily, we managed to keep her awake till 930p, when they finally started handing out the awards. She did get a participation rosette for her hard work and she was thrilled with that. We also got her score sheets and she amazingly scored pretty high. She got a perfect score on Costume, Audience Appeal and Stage Presentation. As for Ability, her scores still were only 5 points away from perfect, which still is not bad considering she was exhausted. She finally got what seemed to see something of a second wind, so I decided to open up our booth for the last 20 minutes, while Keree and my Mom walked around a bit. Keree was excited to walk outside and see all the light and rides. She only wanted to ride the carousel but after last year and knowing her sensitivity to movement, we told her we would think about it. Off to bed, because I'm exhausted. Tomorrow we will be home for the majority of the day and then we have to be at the Fair by 4pm.