Cotton candy, Funnel Cakes and Carnies!!!!!

Y'all guess what? I took my kids to the Tennessee Valley Fair today. (Thanks Karen for the idea) The atmosphere was your typical fair complete with the melange of rides, carnival games, and food stands packed with meat products, flour, sugar and fat. Yummy! All with an East Tennessee country mountain flair!

Eric had never seen such a sight and he was a little apprehensive at first, but as soon as he saw some big boys get on The Spider and we watched them swirl around about a thousand times, he said " Mommy I want to do that"

Here we go.

"Eric, you are still a little boy (even though I tell him he is a 'big boy' all the time) and you are just not tall enough to go on this ride. Let's go over to the little kid area" So we did and he rode on three rides. The first ride - OH I wish I captured it on film- was the bee ride. It had the center pole and all of the 'bees' came out of it like spokes. The bees go up and down while rotating around the center pole. So, we stand him up against the height requirement pole and he meets the minimum. I give him his tickets which he proceeds to give to the ride operator. As an aside, this ride operator was the quintessential carnie! This guy had a long pony tail, a gaping whole in the front of his mouth where the two front teeth used to be and the remaining teeth he did have weren't that great to look at anyway. He even had an "I love mom" tatoo!!! Sweet. Well, I cannot go because I am too big, plus, I have Amy with me and she can't go because she is too small. I realized that I am about to enter into a mothering rite of passage-- entrusting my precious first born to a toothless carnie who loves his mother. The carnie helps him into the closest bee and buckles him in.
"Eric is such a big boy" I think. "There he goes riding his first carnival ride all by himself"
Sniff sniff
The ride starts and up goes Eric's bee. I wouldn't say he was petrified, but I wouldn't say he was all smiles either. He went around three times before I saw any change of movement from his statuesque body. And the change I saw was a slight smile and flick of a finger that closely resembled the beginning of a wave.
So here is Mom, waving like crazy as he goes around while thinking about how big my baby is. At the end of the ride, he was waving and smiling. Oh, what fun. I wish you could have seen him.

The next two rides were the trains and boats. Not as eventful, but at least Amy got to ride with Eric on the boats which by the way were not in water. They were just on a track that has a slight up and down genre. Amy cried because she wanted to go with big brother. So I went and put her in the boat next to him and walked to the gate. She then cried the whole time.

What a day. We did make it over to the Home Centered Craft Expo hall so I could check out the quilts. :-) I looked at them in peace while the kids were content to sit in the double stroller while eating some award winning homemade choco chip cookies. #14 you get a blue ribbon from me and my kids!! Your cookies were great.

Eric passed out on the way home and went straight to bed. It does kind of gross me out that Eric didn't get a bath, but I was SURE that he did wash hands before getting into our car. Amy, on the other hand, was on a post fair high and didn't settle down until 9:30 even though we got home at 8.

Sigh, so now here I am, reliving the sights (carnies, lots of overweight southerners, and 4H sheep) sounds ("mommy, I want to do that" and "yall cut that out or I'm on whup ya") and smells (flour sugar fried in hot fat and cigarette smoke) of the famous Tennesse Valley Fair. Hope you have a great day! We Luv Ya, Yall! Bye bye

Not many people wear orange well...

Accept if you live in the great Rocky Top state of Tennessee! You bleed orange. Today is September 1st, Labor Day and the first game day of the University of Tennessee Vols. (Volunteers for those of you out-of-staters) Everybody and I mean everybody including babies and dogs, had some sort of orange UT garb on today. I have never seen so much orange in all my life. I went to the grocery store and this cute little four month old had on an orange onsie and matching "I'm a little Vol" bib.
This is Tennessee at it's finest, folks.
Nevertheless, I was the only person in the entire Food City who was not wearing something that was either orange or had a UT logo on it. I felt a little out of place. But here is the kicker... the game is an away game and still people are gathering around the campus to watch the big game at sports bars and such.

Thus is my intro to Tennessee football. Other than that, life is pretty good here. Amy is still not sleeping through the night, Eric likes to drop his trousers and poop in our backyard just like the dogs, and I am trying to figure out what shade of orange I will look somewhat decent in for next game day.