Nice few days
Every year I look forward to the art fair my city puts on downtown. We have a downtown that is a block away from the river and every year they close down about a mile or so (maybe less? I’m not good with distance) and fill it with artist booths, delicious fair food and musical entertainment. Every year it seems to get bigger and there are more and more booths, food vendors and bands that seem to bleed out to the side streets and into the park on the river. I love it. I browse, eat some funnel cake, drink the real, home made lemonade and take in the atmosphere. I love to look closely at the art and people watch. It is truly one of the few things I look forward to each year.
The fair opened on Wednesday and I decided to take Iain with me so he could browse and learn a bit along the way. In the summer the gym has a Wild Wednesday program that runs from 11:30 - 3:30 so I took advantage of that and let the girls have some fun while Iain and I strolled the streets. My mom helps enough as it is so I didn’t feel right asking her to watch them while I messed around at the fair. Plus, running around in the gym, doing crafts and eating pizza for lunch is certainly a good time.
Iain and I covered about three hours that day and I was really proud of him. He didn’t whine about being bored although at the end he was ready to go. I can’t blame him because by then we had spent a great deal of time walking around and looking at things. Not surprisingly he was focused on the food. The boy loves to eat fair food. We both grabbed a lemonade and he had a hot dog and I a Polish sausage (no comments from the gallery, thanks). He kept telling me that he liked spending time with me alone without the girls and that it was the best day ever. Yeah, the boy knows how to sweet talk me — he got ice cream out of that one.
Gracie and I returned on Friday to see her violin teacher perform with her string trio. She and I covered four hours that day and we had a great time, too. It was really nice spending time with the kids and enjoying the fair with some one-on-one time. Now that they are getting older, it’s so much easier to take them along (although separately — they still fight like animals I swear) and actually enjoy ourselves rather than worry about a runner or being bored 20 minutes into it.
Saturday we went to my friend Kelly’s daughter’s graduation party. I can’t believe she’s graduated high school. Crazy how time flies so quickly. The weather was iffy but we still had a great time and it was really nice to see Kelly and her family. We don’t get together nearly as often as we should. The food was great and so was the company. The kids had a blast and I had fun catching up with people I hadn’t seen in some time. Jeff showed up for a little while but he had worked earlier in the day and then had to be in again for midnights. He’s exhausted.
Today we just did a lot of nothing. I framed some art Iain made back when school was still in and tried to practice violin but, as you already know, I had string issues so that never got anywhere. Tomorrow our week starts again and we also have art camp for Iain. He’s really excited and so am I. I hope he enjoys it as much as I enjoyed art at his age.
