Big Money, Big Money!

So I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had entered some knit items in the Mariposa County Fair. And I may or may not have mentioned that I was blessed with third place ribbons for both of my entries, yay me! And here they are in all their prizewinning glory,

a hat


and a pair of socks


And not only do I get bragging rights, I actually get a cash money prize! Sort of...


Yep, siree. One dollar! Tee hee. They probably spent way more in time, effort and postage, poor things. Now I just have one question for y'all.

Is the mascot on the above ribbons a butterfly wearing ruffled bell bottoms?

I thought so.

Not For The Faint of Heart

Dudes. Do you wanna see some scary stuff? Well grab your teddy bears and safety blankets...

The house that we bought was pretty bad to start with...


Then the termite repair started...


Bathroom before and after...




And just the post destruction picture of my future craft room...


Um, yes. That is our house up on jacks. Our contractor had a nasty health issue that needed to be tended to last week. So we were a bit more open to the elements for a little longer than desired. I guess they patched him up for now, and supposedly he's back to work this week. Eeek. Send him some nice healing thoughts, we promise we'll take it easy on him, and hopefully we'll all come out the other end of this process none the worse for the wear...

A Week Late, But A Month Early...

I've gotten a bit behind on the old bloggy here. So here is a quick recap from two weekends ago... The highlight was the County Fair, of course. Tankster loved seeing all the animals, we saw sheep, pigs, cattle, bunnies and all manner of fowl...



Its funny that he looks so mezmerized by chickens here, as they have two at his daycare that free range among the kiddos. But the turkeys were taller than him, and many of the pigeons were above eye level, so chickens it was!

Here he is checking his line while driving a tractor through the fair crowds. I tell you, its the best way to get to the front of the line for the choo choo train ride...


And here he is NOT displaying any of the joy or glee that the train ride actually brought him. He LOVED this thing. Wanted to ride it all night. They make you buy tickets to ride the rides, so somehow it seemed less like money then. So we actually ended up spending WAY more on this silly thing than we should have. He's also too small to ride alone, so one of us got to go each time, doubling the cost. Eeek. He rode one other roller coaster-y kid ride, but he really didn't like it, and kept asking for the choo choo again. So we caved. Big softies.


There was one more highlight to the fair, that I forgot to get a picture of. I had entered socks and a hat in the crafts part, and they both won third place in their division! Woot woot!

Sunday we had planned to actually do more agricultural (and knitting focused) exploration, as I thought it was the "Mariposa Agri-Nature Trail/Weekend in the Country" weekend. So we drove out to the local alpaca farm. Just as we got there, I actually looked at the pamphlet in my hand and noticed that it was supposed to take place at the end of September, not the end of August. We were a whole month early. Oops.

Karen and John couldn't have been any nicer about our mistake, and gave us our own personal tour anyway. I hope to be able to return the favor and maybe get a group of local knitting ladies to come out and peruse her fiber wares during the regular tour weekend!

Next up! A wedding outside of LA, Tanks first ocean visit, and kicking the ball around on a college football field...