The Fair

Earlier this week I ventured into public with my sister and we went to the State Fair.  She had 3 of her kids, and I had 4 of mine, so we had a good crowd. 

 Shea is missing in this picture.  Why, well because he was with me...

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He spent most of the day with me, as he didn't want to ride the scary rides.  We rode the fair lift, and got a few good pictures from it.  

His favorite ride was the ferris wheel, and we rode it a few times.  

Sean and Josh rode it once with us, as we separated boys and girls on this ride.  We ended up talking about video games, and what would happen if there was a power outage.  

The girls however, I am pretty sure embarrassed Heidi as they were non stop "Flirting" with some boys in another box.  

Not sure how to flirt myself, apparently you make funny faces.  I shall try that sometime, see how it works for me.  

It was a blast, we ate cotton candy, talked about Templton, and just had a great time.  Followed the trip up with BBQ at my house, and watched toy story 3.  In fairness, we started the movie in the Heidi's shinny new car.

It was a blast, I think all of the kids had fun.  I forgot to ask Megan if the corn dog was good, but other then that I think we all had fun.  Thanks Heidi.  Oh, and most of the pictures are from her and Autumn, I cannot take credit...

Fleas

Well, my house had fleas... I think.  I mean, It could be mosquitoes.

Well, I decided to flea bomb the house today, and to get out the kids and I decided to go for a  hike / drive.  We ended up at Stevens Mine, and were there all afternoon exploring.

There is a little swimming pool, and it was so pretty we hung out for hours.  Here are some of the kids exploring.

There were a few that were really good.  This particular two of shea are my favorites for now.

Lots of green, loved the look.  

In the end, we found two mine shafts that I had not previously found.  

but then they all got tired.  

After the afternoon exploring, we went to diner and played miniature golf.  That was just as fun, but didn't get pictures.  

The fourth of July

I know it is kind of late.  I actually forgot about it…lol But, here is the fourth of july pictures for everyone.

As a family, and I mean the whole darn family, got together at Joe’s house this year.  Ended up with I have no idea how many of us, but there was more food then 5x our number could have eaten. There are so many stories to tell, it should be left to a better speller to tell.  But I know my kids LOVED the fact that the next day they walked downstairs and asked Joe what was for breakfast... Joe said Cake.  After all, he had two full sized sheet cakes left.  Good childhood... not to mention none of my kids brushed their teeth.  

Each member of the family brought some side dish, and then something to BBQ.  I think I got out of bringing anything, but I did a lot of the cooking. I stood there for almost 4 hours cooking.  It was a blast.  We ate well, that is for sure.

We started the day with most of the kids playing capture the flag or some such game with water balloons and squirt guns.   One of the funny things about this was that Shea was apparently crying about it not being fair, and Joe gave him this squirt gun about as big as he was and told him he was ref.  I didn't see this, but it explains the change in his attitude.  

There were many action shots during the game.  I want to mention, all of these were taken by Papa.  

I guess they are trying to give the message that they are not to be messed with. 

Papa did good on this one.

A good shot

followed by another.  Seams Papa has not lost his touch.  

and then another

I can honestly say, I have made fun of people that have made these type of partyies for most of my life.. What kind of foolish person gets together , and spends thousands on fireworks.  We only spnet hundreds, but the fireworks was fun... And the kicker, we are all sober and I will never forget the humor as I here Joe say I thought she hit me... The story, Joe got nailed in the chest with a morter round..  It wasn't actualy a mortor, but it sounds better.  Autumn was standing next to him, and he thought she was strong enough to do that.  Heidi and Grany got sprayed by sparks, and the whole group was standing or sitting where the thing went... And we nearly blew the hole family up, stone cold sober.  

Where was I... Trying to change the setting on my camera and missed the whole thing. 

But, I did capture some of these.  

This one I loved, if you know me you know I like faces..lol

It may be my depression.  It may be life in general. Two of us are divorced.  The declining health of the family, people running off to collage soon.  These activities are soon to come to an end.  It will be hard to have every member of the current family present for an impromptu photo.  The idea is more then I care to think.  We are not all going to be here for ever.  But, here are a few of the good ones.

Here however is the reason for life.  Family, friends, and happiness.... and blowing things up.

I look forward to next year.  

For anyone interested, here is a link to about 50 of the pictures that I have posted.