A White Christmas!

We got a wonderful Christmas gift this year! Sure, the games,books, puzzles and the sweaters were great! We love them all, but when we were up at Gramma and Papa’s in Auberry on Christmas night, we got snow! SNOW! It wasn’t very deep and it was really wet, but it was snow! The girls were thrilled!

It has only snowed in Fresno twice in the last twenty years -- once was when Amanda was about a year and a half old. In the past we have taken the girls up in the high mountains to play in the snow, but the last time we did that, Rebecca was about a year and a half old. Katrina has never seen snow before, and she was enthralled! She ran out into it before we could even get her coat and hat on. She was startled when she slipped and fell, but she got right up and kept going! We had to convince them to come inside after a while so they didn’t get too cold. (Our apologies to those of you who are now existing in four feet of snow and below freezing temperatures to so blithely say that they were cold in their sweatshirts and hats.) We hope your Christmas was filled with wonderful surprizes too!


Katrina runs outside without her hat and sweater on

Katrina slips in the snow

Katrina makes handprints in the snow

Rebecca and Amanda run through the snow

our footprints in the snow

Bond. . . James Bond

Kevin and I went to see the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace the other night, and I just wanted to put my opinion out there for anyone who is interested in knowing it. I have seen every James Bond film, as our family were fans as I was growing up. We were big movie fans in general, but there were several, like James Bond movies, that were essential. My favorites would have to be Goldfinger and Dr. No. Those were the best villains ever! "I don't expect you to talk Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

I have to say, first of all (and I am sure that most of you will agree with me), that there is no other James Bond than Sean Connery. He was, is, and always will be THE quintessential James Bond.

Now, most of the actors who have played James Bond since Connery have done a decent job, with the notable exception of Roger Moore. The only thing that Roger Moore did was play next to great villains, like Jaws.

That being said, I am really enjoying the newest James Bond, Daniel Craig. He has definitely brought back the gritty, physical, sexiness that is what James Bond is all about. (One major change however, is that the sexism that was prevalent in the early movies seems to have been diluted. I LOVE Judy Dench as M!) Gone are all the gadgets and back is the use-what-you-can-get-your-hands-on kind of fighting that makes James Bond what he is! That is why we also like Jason Bourne (remember the pen in The Bourne Identity? Ouch!).

He still has the one liners, the cars (Wow! The '64 Aston Martin! Okay, the new one is nice too.), the women, but it is on a greater scale than we have seen in a LONG time! I would even say on a different scale than we have ever seen. The opening scene in Casino Royale is amazing in it's physicality, complexity and sheer length. Who would have thought you would say that about James Bond?

In short, I am glad they picked Daniel Craig as the new James Bond!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We have been seriously busy this last few weeks, so we haven't been able to stop and share all the fun stuff we have been doing!

Thanksgiving was great! That is one of my favorite holidays. No gifts, no decorations, just focusing on good food and what we are grateful for in life. Not to mention the fact that I have Mayflower ancestry. Isaac Allerton and his family. Kevin's parents were in Nevada with his sister, so we got together with the Molloys and Kaufmans. We each brought a part of the meal and then all got to take home leftovers. It was great! We all played games and had a fun time.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we put up the trees. This year we bought a new 6.5' pre-lit tree and absolutely covered it with thirty-two years of ornaments. You can barely see the tree! The other tree is all my nativity ornaments. We get a new ornament each year. This year I got a monarch butterfly ornament for the family. Amanda got a silver A, Rebecca got a pink tiara, and Katrina got a handmade Little Einsteins ornament (I just can't justify paying Hallmark $15 for the 3D one that plays the theme song).

On 2 December, we went for the opening walk-thru night of Christmas Tree Lane with the Molloys and the Kaufmans. We walked the two mile route in two hours (including a potty break with a very long line) and got to see all the displays up close. Many of the displays have been there since Kevin and Lora were kids, and others were brand new this year. We have many favorites that we look forward to seeing each year. The older kids were so excited to get to look for all of Santa's reindeer up close! They found Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. When we got back to the cars, we had hot chocolate, hot Tang, and really yummy gingerbread cookies that Andrea had made. It was a late night, but a lot of fun.

On 4 December, the girls went to make gingerbread houses at the Library. We have been doing that since Amanda was eighteen months old. Amanda is glad that there is not an age limit so that she can still go and do them. I am glad that Amanda is still wanting to go and that it has not gotten too "cool" to do it anymore.

On the 7th, Lora and Andrea Kaufman sang a song called "Baby Christ Child" for the prelude in Sacrament Meeting. That night we went up to Mom and Dad's in Auberry and we helped Dad put the lights on the tree out in the yard by the driveway. They had a live tree about six years ago when they first were building the house, and they planted it next to the driveway. Every year Dad puts lights on it. This year it is probably 12-15' tall! We were going to take a few photos next to the tree so that we could play around with the ideas tat we had and and then retake them later. Well, as luck would have it, we actually got the nearly perfect photo! The tree looks great, we are all smiling, the sun had just set so there was a beautiful glow in the background, AND. . . there was a star in the sky right behind us! (It is actually Saturn, but at this range, it looks like a star.) It turned out great!

On the 9th Rebecca went to the library for a Christmas Storytime and got to make an ornament. It is pink.

In between all of this Amanda has been having meetings twice a week at our house with the Odyssey of the Mind group. They are just about to get their first trial structure made so that they can test it.

On 11 December the Relief Society had their Christmas Party and I was in charge of it. It went really well. We had a progressive dinner of sorts and the soups were especially delicious! The focus was on service and we had a Christmas decoration swap and a Service Swap. Each sister filled out a card with a service that they would be willing to give to another sister, and then the cards were drawn in a "White Elephant" type game. It was a lot of fun! We also had several really wonderful stories that the sisters shared about how giving and receiving service has affected them. It was a lovely evening, and, as we hoped, the fog delayed it's encroachment until after we were done and home.

On 12 December we went to the Ward Christmas Party. This year was a dessert party, so we made fudge. Yum! We took the photos of Amanda and Rebecca with Santa just like we did last year. (Katrina again refused to have anything to do with Santa, even when we offered to sit on his lap with her.) Members of the ward shared family traditions and memories of Christmas and we sang songs. The kids got to decorate cookies. It was fun.

On Saturday I got together with Andrea, Cory and Camille to practice "O Holy Night". I am really proud of myself, because the version that we are singing did not have an alto line, and so I figured out what notes I would sing and created the alto line for Camille and I to sing. I took it to my piano practice on Wednesday and Sister Moses was really impressed and helped me to tweak a couple of spots so that it sounded even better. We practiced really hard and got to the point where we could have sung it a capella if we had to. We got so many compliments when we sang it on Sunday. It sounded so good!

Now we just need to make our Christmas cards and get the last few presents taken care of so we can get things in the mail!

Blogging my weight loss journey - Month 11

I was hoping to do better in the two weeks remaining in November, but with Thanksgiving and too much fudge and a root beer float, I didn't get to where I was hoping to be, but I am heading back in the right direction.

I need to remember the phrase I said all the time at the beginning: Let the temptation pass. Temptations don't usually last all that long, so if I get the temptation to eat something I shouldn't, I should wait for a little while, and then my mind will have moved on, and I won't crave that thing any more.

I have been exercising in the mornings, getting up at 5:00am, to get in a 30-45 minute workout before the girls get up at 6:00am. I resisted getting up that early for a long time, but it is working out okay. I also need to get out and walk more again.

I lost 3 pounds and 3.5" in the last two weeks. I am really going to need added strength in this next month as there are many of my favorite foods that are going to be readily available around me. Let the temptation pass! Let the temptation pass!

Checkmate!

This year Amanda joined the Chess Club at Liberty Intermediate school. She practices a lot, playing against her friends and her mom, and she has improved dramatically since she only started at the beginning of the school year. The Chess Club meets twice a week and the members practice with each other.

This Saturday they had their first tournament. Amanda did really well. She ranked 14th out of 53 in her division. She won two matches, lost two matches and the last one ended in a stale-mate. We were really proud of her! Her next tournament is in January.

See all the pics HERE.

Blogging my weight loss journey - Month 10. . .and a half. . .THE DETOUR

Okay, I needed the kick in the pants to write this month's blog post about my weight loss journey. (Thanks Shea!) I was really depressed about this last few months. I have taken a HUGE detour on the weight loss journey, and I am having a very hard time getting back on track. I am not happy right now. I am upset with myself. I don't feel good. I get headaches. I am tired. Why would I purposefully make myself feel this way?

I do not understand why when I start to stray off the path that it means that I should go running as fast as I can in the other direction! After school started I got thrown off my exercise schedule, and so slowly I started to eat the wrong foods, but rather than just maintain where I was, I went completely off the deep end and ate everything in sight!!! ARG! Seriously! What the heck is wrong with me? Why can I not control what I put into my mouth?

I am telling you the answer right now - IT IS AN ADDICTION!!!

I have to treat food the way that a recovering alcoholic treats alcohol. Can a recovering alcoholic have just one drink? No! Can I just have one cookie? NO! I can't, because in my mind one cookie is the open door to eat as many cookies as I possibly can. Why? I will never know. But, with me that is the way it is. Lots of diets tell you that you have to splurge every once in a while, but I can't. A splurge leads to a surge, and I have to stay as far away from that as possible.

Hello, my name is Lora and I am a recovering foodaholic.

I have to accept, no matter how painful it may be, that I cannot eat chocolate chip cookies. I cannot eat ice cream. I cannot eat candy. I have to accept, no matter what my brain may tell me otherwise, that food is fuel. Food is not friend, just fuel. (Say that with the voice of the sharks from Finding Nemo.)

I whine about how unfair it is that I can't just eat whatever I want and that I have to work at this forever, i.e. I can't lose the weight and stop working at it. I have to do this forever. Well, if the doctors told me that I had a fatal, incurable disease, but that I could stay alive indefinitely by not eating chocolate, don't you think I would do everything I could to stay alive? I wouldn't be willing to risk my life by eating chocolate. So why am I so willing right now?

Satan is trying to kill me, and he is doing it with food. That sign is on my refrigerator. Currently it is buried by Katie's drawings and school lunch schedules, but after I post this it will come back out to the front.

Okay, I am getting more and more energized the more I write! So, gulp, here is the current stats (I have to accept the consequences of my actions):

weight gained: 13 lbs.
inches gained: 18"

Goals for the month of November:

*Pray like crazy for help every single second of the day!!!

*Exercise, even as little as twenty minutes, on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Get up earlier on the days that I have to!

*Write down everything that I eat! Get back on course with the five meals a day! PORTION CONTROL!!!

*Get back down to the weight I was in August!

This is a journey right?! Sometimes you run into hazards along the way. As long as you are going in the right direction, you will eventually get to where you are going. Sometimes you go slow, sometimes you go fast. I will get there. I have already lost 41 pounds. I have already reached many of my goals. Granted, I have to meet several of them again, but I will. If you sit on the side of the road feeling sorry for yourself, you are not going to get anywhere.

I am going to get back on track. My name is Lora and I am addicted to food. I will overcome that addiction! I will be fit! I will be healthy! I will be strong!

By the way, it is good to have road signs and AAA to help along the way, so all of you out there feel free to be my road signs and say, STOP! WRONG WAY! SLOW DOWN! CAUTION! when you see me eyeing that piece of pie or a cookie or telling you that I am off track like that makes it okay. You don't have to be the police, just a positive, gentle reminder. Thanks!

The good news: I have still lost 28 pounds and 39.25". I have not returned to where I was before. I am facing up to my mistakes and getting back on track. Back in the right direction.

Butterfly Road Trip

This year we "hatched" some butterflies, and Katrina's favorite DVD is Little Einstein's Big, Huge Adventure, in which they meet a caterpillar that eventually changes into a butterfly and migrates to his "butterfly family reunion". Our friends, the Kaufman's "hatched"some butterflies too. So, when we heard that we could see the butterflies at the Butterfly Grove in Pismo Beach, we planned a road trip to go see them!

We left early this morning, driving through the farmlands of the Valley and then up into the foothills of the Coast Range. It was a cool, autumn day, but clear and sunny! Gorgeous! We did a lot of geocaching along the way. We found some caches that we had not found before and also stopped at several caches that we knew that the Kaufman's would like.

As we got into Pismo Beach, we went to the Butterfly Grove. That was so neat! The count for the day was 7500 butterflies! Wow! The butterflies were absolutely dripping from the trees. There were some flitting here and there, but most were just hanging out. We got there just in time to listen to the docent talk about the butterflies and their life cycle and their migration to and from the Grove. One thing that we learned that we did not know was that the butterflies that lay their eggs there and that move on do not ever come back to the Grove. It takes four or five generations for the butterflies to come back, which means that the children of the butterflies that leave there will never see this Grove. Yet, their descendants all know to go back there. That is amazing! We will definitely be coming back here again!

After the butterflies, we drove down to Santa Maria to visit with my Gpa Marshall. He recently moved to a retirement home there, Santa Maria Terrace. The girls played with Gpa's walker and we got to visit with him for a little while before he had to go down for dinner.

Afterwards we went to dinner at a restaurant in downtown Pismo and then walked out onto the pier and then we got back on the road to head home. As we left, it began to rain, so our timing was perfect!

Date Night!

This weekend Kevin and I went out on a triple date with our good friends Eddie and Cory Molloy and Steve and Andrea Kaufman, to celebrate Steve's birthday. We went to the Yosemite Falls Cafe for dinner. We laughed a lot, ate some delicious food, and took some great photos! The staff of the restaurant even came over to sing to Steve and brought him a special ice cream sundae. After dinner we went back to the Molloys for a movie and root beer floats. It was a lot of fun! It is so nice to spend time with good friends!




Andrea Kaufman, Cory Molloy and Lora Nehring lookin' smokin' hot!



Lora and Kevin

Halloween costumes

The girls costumes look great this year!

Amanda is dressed up as Marco Hietala, the bassist/vocalist for our favorite Finnish symphonic metal band, Nightwish. She looked great! I made her costume by painting the band name on a t-shirt and making a foam core replica of Marco's guitar. (A Warwick Infinity NT) Because most people do not know who he is, we put photos of Marco, the band, his guitar and one of me and Marco, on the back of the guitar. We made her goatee by gluing crepe wool on with spirit gum. (I spent an amazing amount of time trying to figure out how to do the goatee, as I could only find ones that were black or brown, and then finally I found crepe wool and it was PERFECT!!)

Rebecca was a fairy. We got her wings and skirt from a neighbor down the street who was giving away costumes last month. All we had to buy was the leotard. We painted her face and she really liked that part!

Katrina was a princess. She wore the same dress that Rebecca wore when she was five, but we bought her a new tiara that was just hers! She loved it.

We went to the Ward Halloween Party last night. There were a TON of people there (word sure gets around!). It was fun. There were lots of game booths, like the ever-favorite cake walk, etc., and then afterward everyone went out to the parking lot for a trunk-or-treat.

We did a booth that people could get their photo taken in their costumes. We had a backdrop with a big spider web and spider on it and a table with a candelabra with drippy candles, a skull and a cauldron with mist coming out of it. People stood next to the table and we took their photos and then we printed them out for them. It went really well.

Amanda gets to dress up in her costume on Friday for Halloween, but at Rebecca's school they do mismatch clothes and crazy hair day. Tomorrow Katrina gets to "trick-or-treat" at the library for Storytime. This is a fun time of the year.

Primary Presentation

Today was the Primary Presentation in our ward. Amanda was the Narrator and Rebecca had a talk and sang the first verse of "When Jesus Christ was Baptized" with her friend Brooklyn Kaufman, who sang the second verse. The girls both did really well and the whole Presentation was really nice. The children did a great job. One of my kids from my Valiant B class gave a talk about prayer and told a story about how his family had prayed to find his mother's car keys. I was so proud of him for sharing such an important experience that he had.

Speaking of my Valiant B class, I was released today. I have known about it for a while, as they told me about the change a little over two weeks ago, but I wasn't going to be changing until after the Primary Presentation. So, today I was released and taught my last lesson. It has been a hard change for me. As much as I have complained about the kids and how much they drive me crazy, I was heartsick to learn that I wasn't going to be their teacher any more. I love teaching the Book of Mormon, so I was sad that I won't get to finish that either. Their new teacher is going to be great though, so I am not too worried. The release also means that I won't be the Activity Days leader any more either.

Change is the most unchangeable part of life.

Geocaching and Pumpkins

Today was a lot of fun and it was a gorgeous day! We went geocaching with our friends, the Kaufmans, and then we all went up to Mom and Dad's for the annual Pumpkin Carving Fest.

It was a hot day for October (88 degrees!!), but nice! We started out by showing the Kaufmans a few of our caches and a few other cool caches in the area and then we headed up into the foothills, by way of Auberry Road, to a geocaching get-together that was celebrating the return of a cacher who had spent the last eighteen months traveling around the US by Amtrack train and finding caches in each of the contiguous 48 states. What a great goal to accomplish!

From there we drove up into the mountains around Kerkoff and Redinger Lakes in the Sierra mountains past Auberry. We drove as far Cal Center where there is a benchmark showing the exact center of California. There is also a cache there. There was a different one there six years ago when we were last there, so it was fun to go back and see it again and find another cache. We found a few other caches on the way back towards Auberry.

As we drove through the mountains and around the lakes we stopped to take photos here and there, as the Kaufmans had never been up in the mountains here. It was a perfect day to show off the beauty of this area! Kevin stopped short twice to get out and look at tarantulas that were crossing the road (I stayed in the van, thank you very much!). That was the only "wildlife" that we encountered.

We got up to Mom and Dad's house and had dinner (Mom makes the best soups!). Besides us and the Kaufmans, there was Wes and Laura and Stone and Scotty and Lea. We hadn't seen Scotty and Lea for a few months, so it was great to be able to catch up with them a little bit.

After dinner we all headed out to the garage where Mom and Dad always have the table covered and there are tons of bowls for the pumpkin guts (This year, Scotty not only brought gloves, but a surgical gown as well! Too funny!), and every cutting implement you can think of. There are all kinds of patterns to choose from as well, although most of us come with designs in mind. I found an idea that I couldn't wait to try. I spray painted the pumpkin black and then carved out the design. It looks really neat! Amanda carved the face of Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter, Rebecca wrote several things on her pumpkin and then carved a jack-o-lantern face on it, and Katie just drew a face and some squiggles, took out a few pumpkin seeds and then declared that she was done.

This is always a fun part of the Fall/Halloween season and we always love being there, not only to carve pumpkins, but to talk and enjoy the company of our friends and family.


See all the geocaching pics HERE.
See all the pumpkin carving pics HERE.

Family Home Evening

Tonight we had a fun Family Home Evening! (Not that all our Family Home Evenings aren't fun, it's just that this one was different!) The Kaufman's came over to share it with us. We started out by singing "Jesus Once Was A Little Child" and then we talked about what Jesus' life might have been like when he was the same age as each of the kids. We talked about how he would have played with his friends, helped Joseph in the workshop and learned how to be a carpenter, and helped his mom in the house with his younger brothers and sisters.

Then we talked about what Jesus might have eaten. We tried to remember all the references about food that we could from the Bible -- bread, fish, honey, seeds, milk, fruits, etc..

Then the kids got to try some of the foods that we had talked about. I had prepared a tray with figs, dates, smoked fish, almonds, homemade cheese, a pomegranate, bread and honey. They also got a cup of lukewarm water. Jesus didn't have a refrigerator after all. Anyway, the kids tried the foods. Some they liked and some they didn't, but it was a neat experience for them to see what people ate long before the days of artificial preservatives and ingredients.

Lora the Cheesemaker

A few months ago when I was reading the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" the author mentioned making her own cheese. I was really intrigued with the idea and looked online for the company she mentioned. I found the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company online and ordered their starter kit.

I got the kit a few days later and I was very excited to try it out! I even enlisted the girls' help and they were excited too. We poured in the milk, heated it up and stirred and added the acid and the rennet, we let it cook, and it kind of, sort of separated and then when we put it in the microwave, it just sort of turned to curd soup. Hmm. Not very inspiring.

The recipe very clearly states that you are not to use ultra-pasteurized milk, which I hadn't, but it also suggests trying a different brand if it doesn't work. So, I bought a different brand and tried again. Again, curd soup. Even soupier actually. I was supposed to be making mozzarella cheese and instead we had wasted two gallons of milk.

I emailed the company and said, "Help! I really want to do this, but I am having trouble!" They emailed back saying that dairies are getting away with heating the milk hotter and hotter and so the "regular" pasteurization is actually too hot to make cheese.

So, I went in search of a place where I could get milk straight from the cow. As luck would have it, we have an organic raw milk dairy just a few miles from our house. I went and bought the milk (and holy cow! -- no pun intended! -- it is amazing the prices they can get away with when it is organic!) and tried again. This time as I was getting everything ready, I was refreshing myself on the instructions and I read that the water you use to dissolve the rennet and the citric acid needs to be chlorine-free. I asked Kevin if he knew if we have chlorine in our water, and he said we probably did, so I used a bottle of drinking water instead.

I started to make the cheese and it all started working just like it was supposed to! Yea! I fact, it worked so well that the cheese was already stretching before I even got it out of the pot! A few minutes later I had a beautiful, shiny ball of mozzarella cheese! Wahoo! Finally!

I emailed the company and told them of my success and asked about the chlorine. They said that would definitely affect the rennet, so I am going to try again with a regular gallon of store bought milk and use drinking water instead and see how it goes.

We tried the cheese out with some crackers and it was good, and tonight we are going to have spaghetti and I am going to grate some to put on top! Yum!

Front Page News

I submitted another article to the Kerman News and not only did they publish it (my second byline!), but they put it on the front page. In color even! Cool!

We have known the Hergenroeders since about six months before we moved to Kerman. They live across the street from our home. The pumpkin patch they have been working on had their grand opening on October 1st. Susie knew that they would not have time to take any photos, so she asked if I would come and take some photos for them.

While I took photos, Katrina had a great time running around looking at the animals, going through the hay bale maze and checking out all the different sizes of pumpkins.

We stuck around for a while when the first field trip arrived and took some more photos. We even went on the hay ride. I sent several photos to the Kerman News, but they only used one, so here are the others:















Then here are ours:

Katrina checked out all the different sizes of pumpkins, but she was most impressed by the huge pumpkins that were as big as her!

They have all sorts of animals at the patch that the kids can look at.



Katie and I on the hay ride.

See all the pics HERE.

The Big Fresno Fair

Every year at the beginning of October we get the girls out of school a little bit early and we all go the Big Fresno Fair. We really lucked out this year too, as the weather was in the mid-nineties the day before, but in the mid-eighties yesterday. It was a gorgeous afternoon and evening. We went on Smoke-free Kid's Day, which meant the kids got in free, but unfortunately it did not mean that anyone paid attention to the No Smoking signs posted all over the whole fair grounds.

We got smart this year and took photos of each of the girls at the entrance to the fair so that if anything happened and we got separated we could show pictures of exactly what they looked like. Why didn't we think of that before? Luckily we did not have to use them!

We started at the Junior Exhibits and hopefully got the girls interested in the idea of entering things into the fair. We also think we may have finally convinced Amanda about the idea of joining 4-H, as many of the projects that she saw in the fair that she said she would like to do were done by 4-H groups.

Next we went to the Kid's Zone, and they had a new exhibit in there that was SOOOO cool! It was a kaleidoscope exhibit and it had all sizes and shapes of kaleidoscopes that were made from all different types of materials. There was even a kaleidoscope with a camera inside of it so that when you stood in front of it, you became a part of the kaleidoscope. It was so much fun and it was hard to get the girls to leave so that we could see the rest of the fair.

We went into an exhibit of old cars and machinery, which is always a favorite. Interestingly enough - and this may seem like a tangent, but it will come around - CalTrans is almost done with the extension of Highway 180. In the meantime, we are being routed on a detour. The detour is long, so those of us who have been doing this periodically for the last four years, we know a different road to turn on and it cuts about a mile off the detour. As we were driving down that road on the way to the fair, Kevin mentioned that he had noticed a house on the road that had some really nice old, restored trucks that were out in the driveway. We didn't think anything more about it. When we went into the exhibit, I made it around a partition before Kevin did and I saw a truck that was absolutely gorgeous and I told Kevin to hurry around and see this truck. As Kevin went around the corner he said, "those are the trucks!", referring to the truck I pointed out and the one next to it. Two of the trucks in the fair exhibit came from the driveway of the house we passed on the detour. Cool!

We were out on the grounds when the Anhieuser Busch Clydesdale horse-drawn wagon went by. Wow! That is impressive up close! All the gear on those horses is amazing!

We then went to the family favorite, the Rocks and Minerals building. The girls LOVE this exhibit! They spun the wheel to win different types of rock prizes, went through the florescent rock exhibit, bought a $1 bag of rocks and this year we bought a small geode that was cut in half for them. (That was LOUD!!) There were all sorts of displays of different rocks and minerals. Amanda loved a diorama scene that was made out of rocks, and Katrina loved a huge crystal display. She pointed at it and said, "grass rocks!"

We went over to the HUGE play area that has a huge fort and a pirate ship and they played there for awhile. Then the went over to the gold panning area and then we went over to the Livestock building. We saw the chickens, bunnies, cows and sheep. They don't have a petting area anymore but this year they had a great interactive play area. You could saddle a big stuffed horse, dress a scarecrow, play in a corn crib, "milk" a cow, and Katrina loved riding the kid-sized tractors.

Then we headed over to the Fine Arts building to see how my photos had done. I only got one ribbon, an Honorable Mention, for the photo of Amanda jumping off the dunes at White Sands National Monument. We looked at a lot of the other photos and then we got some dinner. We always get to pick our favorite "fair" food.

Then we headed to the much anticipated midway! (Rebecca must have asked us at least twenty times when we were going to go there.) The girls went to their favorite ride where they sit in swings and then get spun way up high. We took Katrina to the merry-go-round and she was very anxious to go on it until we got on it. She started to cry and fuss and Kevin took a picture of her on the horse. The ride started and by the time we got back around and he took another photo of her, she had a smile that went from ear to ear. We got off she said she wanted to go again. We went a second time and she waved to her sisters as we went by, and I told her how brave she was to let go with one hand!

We walked back through the Commerce Building where all the vendors are and then we went into the Ag building. The Kerman display is always beautiful and this year was no exception. We bought a big cup of fruit and had a late night dessert snack. Then we made our way though another one of the Commerce Buildings and then out to the van and home. We have several family traditions that we have formed over the years and this is one that we enjoy very much!