whew

back from our trip to the Texas State Fair, complete with detour to go see the live musical version of Mary Poppins. I am happy to report that no one bled, vomited or wandered too far astray during this trip, which makes it a roaring success by our ever-lowering standards. Even the tantrums were pretty minimal.

We went with Dixie's grandma and uncle and had three walking adults, a wheelchair and a double stroller, and the kidlets. Getting from one thing to the next took up way too much time, but we still had a great deal of fun watching the kids on their first little roller coasters and eating turkey legs, nachos, cotton candy, funnel cakes and hot dogs. We managed to pass up the newest fair food of the year: fried butter.

The petting zoo featured not only the usual pigs, goats, cows, llamas, emu and ostriches, but also some really nifty things like a giraffe, zebra, camels, cebu, giant tortoise and kangaroo. Almost all the animals there were mamas and their babies--the goats still had their umbilical cord stumps attached, the piglets were nursing like crazy and you could see the joey's ears sticking out of the kangaroo's pouch!

Having tickets to a 2 pm matinee was just about perfect. We got in some rides, petting zoo time and lunch before sitting down in a cool and cozy place for a couple hours, then were well rested to hit the asphalt pushing again. The girls rode the carousel and Charlie was a farm helper, we went through the animal pens and some of the booths. The kids played in a giant sandbox for awhile and Charlie became well acquainted with the guy running the jacuzzi booth.

When we wheeled and walked our way out at almost 8 that evening, we caught the tail end of the parade along our way. We stopped as it went by, then it stopped at the end of it's route and we took a turn walking past the parade. I'm glad we grabbed dinner at the nearest McD's because all backseat passengers were quickly asleep. Jane and Dixie were in the middle and Uncle Billy and I were in the front. The four of us were all chatting and Dixie suddenly asked, "Mommy, when we get to the hotel, who is going to carry Daddy in?"

Fortunately, he woke up. Only Melody and Charlie were carried to their beds.

Today, we had a lazy morning in the hotel, then said good-bye to them and headed just up the road to my brother's house. Their street is having some work done, so we moved some sawhorses around to drive on a partially finished road and parked behind construction vehicles. Punctured the back of my van on some kind of machine trying to get out. Can't decide if I want to leave it looking like I have a bullet hole in my minivan to build some street cred or if my concern for rain leakage will have me shopping for a well-placed bumper sticker to act as an automotive condom.

Either way, we are home and our stuff is put away and I am trying to get motivated to start laundry.