4 Miles

This afternoon we went to the State Fair. We also took the State Fair Train to the fair. It was a fun time. I'm having a hard time sharing about it because I'm sad, I broke my camera there.  So give me a moment to sigh over that.  <sigh>  It was a good camera, lasted almost 3 years.  I'm blaming Will's cheap water bottle (the one I bought with you Shari–but I don't blame you, I'm just going to throw it out and look for another one) …it leaked water into my bag and onto the camera.  When I went to take a new picture, the camera opened and locked up. And never restarted.  Now we're in a pickle. I had hoped to upgrade that camera in the near future (if the house sold)…and now I'm stuck with no camera, no money to get the camera I want, yet not wanting to spend the money to replace the camera I had (knowing I'd want to upgrade in 6 months to a year). One more time, humor me… <sigh> Is a broken camera considered an emergency?  Can we break into the emergency fund?  Since we have family out of state/country and this is our only way to keep them in touch?

Anyway, back to the fun topic… James took the afternoon off, Alex took and early nap and we rushed to make the 2:45 train (they recommened being there 30 minutes early). James dropped me and the boys off to get the tickets and went to park. Will was so excited to go in this building and see a picture of a train! Then I told him to go look out the door–there was a REAL train!!! When I asked him if he wanted to ride it, he was SO excited! It was hard for him to wait the 15 minutes we had left for the train to start.  Yes, that was a big hit.  Both boys were glued to the window the entire time.

Once we got to the fair, the boys loved seeing the tractors. We waved at the tractors that pulled cars with seats (people movers? We called them tractor trains–here's a picture from last year) around the fair grounds.  The boys got to pretend to drive tractors out on display. (Will wanted to know why he couldn't REALLY drive them or use the digger on the small digger/front end loader.  Hmmm…I wonder!)  We had fun in the FFA building that is for kids–Will got to play with James on the miniature golf course and Alex got to play with the dump truck, run around, go up and down stairs and look at a motorcycle.  Then we started to hunt for food.  We ended up getting fair favorites (James: Gyro, Me: Lamb kabob, Boys: hot dogs, James & I: Funnel cake) and then realized we could rush to make for the 6:30 Fair Train back or wait for the 8:00 train. Considering the boys were already getting fussy, we opted to rush. This meant we didn't see many animals (just a quick swing through the cow barn) or other things on display. But, we had gotten two free coupons for admission to get in, so we were fine with the three hours we spent there and headed back to the train station.   On the way home Alex was a bit antsy and not as interested at looking out the window.  It was nice to get back to the car and strap him into his car seat. 

We ended up going on the coolest day of the month. We got sprinkled on a bit, but the clouds and breeze kept it cool and beautiful–yet they must have scared off enough people that it wasn't too busy.  It was a great time. 

Some of you know that we, along with 5 of our neighbors, are in the process of negoiating the sale of our land to a developer. And if you didn't know–you do now!  We live behind a rather busy road and I'd like us to live in a neighborhood with kids and sidewalks.  This is me giving just a few of our for reasons selling land to developers…I'm not sure why I feel the need to justify it. We don't like this house and never planned to stay here long term. The entire two years here we've debated over whether we should fix/update things for our enjoyment + resale value, or will we end up being able to sell the house to developers (thus the house will be torn down) so doing things would be a waste of money. We ended up doing a kind of mixed bag…a little fixing up at a time. And I feel the things we've done, (such as add a door, put in the deck,) have made it a much nicer place to live while we were here so I don't think they were a waste of too much money.

Anyway, we are now two months into the process and are waiting on two neighbors to come to an agreement on the purchase price. Part of the purpose of this is to ask you to please pray with us that a deal can be met. We'd REALLY like to be able to do this! Also, I thought it would be funny to document the list of things we have NOT been doing that were on our To Do List this summer:

• Paint the garage door
• Paint the shutters
• Paint the shed out back
• Stain the deck
• Landscaping the area that was torn up when work was done on the well. (Oh, looking at that post made me realize I didn't update you on that–insurance covered the cost of the well being repaired and the side walk being fixed, but no landscaping. So we have a lovely patch of weeds in front of our house right now.)
• Fixing the 2 cracks in the ceiling in the hallway
• Painting all the ceilings
• Repainting our bedroom
• Painting the kitchen cabinets white  (Yes, lots of painting. No one here seems too sad that we're waiting on this.)
• Putting a door knob in the door for the play room/Guest room (this do hasn't had a door knob the 2 years we've lived here, I'm embarrased to share…something about the hole not being standard size. When that room was Alex's nursery, it was great, I could check on him without him seeing me!  Now that it's back to being a guest room, I think we should try to find one to fit. But why spend the money now, if the house won't be here in 6-9 months?)
• Buying/Hanging up towel bars for the bathroom (Again, two years later and we're still using the hooks in the closet and on the back of the door. But I want one for a hand towel and the boys towels.  But I couldn't make up my mind on what I wanted.)
• Clean all the windows inside and out

Let's just say if the deal falls through, we're going to have a busy fall!

The previous four weekends we've had people visit us (mostly family).  And it was fun to have them visit us, we didn't have to drive out to see them and we love seeing family and friends. But by week #4, I was getting a bit tired of cleaning up the house to get it "Visitor Ready", washing the guest sheets and remaking the guest bed again (the futon in the playroom) and getting all the toys out of the playroom to make it a guest room. (It's our Room of Requirement, changing as our Requirements change.)  So this last weekend, our first weekend of 'freedom', we celebrated by leaving! Saturday we drove up to Upland to visit my parents and some old friends.  It was a wonderful time.  I also had a weekend of baby showers, one Friday night and one Sunday. By the end of the second shower I was ready to have Baby #3.

Today we were blessed with a cloudy morning.  The rain that was in Chicago fell apart before we got any (and we really need some) but the clouds have kept the temperatures down and it's been down right pleasant!  Of course the sun is coming out now, and I'm sure it'll heat up just as we head out to the State Fair–but we'll still go. I can't miss my chance for funnel cakes and other Very Bad Food! I showed Will pictures of him at the State Fair the last two years and now he's looking forward to seeing all the tractors.  And the Farris Wheel. He has never been on one, nor did he see pictures of the one at the fair, but at some point in time he saw one on Dora and was talking about it this morning–how there's "…this circle that has lots of seats and goes around and around". Once he said that I remembered he'd been really intersted in the one at the Fair last year and we said "Maybe next year".  While I'm sure he doesn't remember that, I am guessing he's going to ask to ride on it when he sees the one at the State Fairl.  I'll let Daddy handle that issue!