Jeremy – Page 3 – Andelin Adventures

Utah State Fair

Every year, the fair has different deals on each day. Today their deal was that kids get in free and adults get in for the kid price so we planned ahead and Kyle took the day off so we could go to the state fair. We invited Debby and Rexton to come along as well. Once we got to the fair the first building we checked out was a fine arts building. There were lots of crafts and art pieces. I really liked this one:

I had to send a picture of it to dad. He has worked, for longer than I have been alive, making brass instruments just like these. I worked at the factory too during my teenage years, and so it really caught my eye.

We decided that we should check the fishing pond for its hours so that we could go while it was open so that Jeremy could earn his fishing belt loop. They just happened to be stocking the pond with fish when we got there, so we got to watch.

Then we decided to take a break and get a lunch snack. We really liked the twisted taters that we got last year, so Debby and I and some of the kids found an empty table to sit at while Kyle went with the rest of the kids to get some twisted taters. This time though he had them make them up nacho style with cheese sauce, chili, and shredded pork.

He also got some German, Polish and Italian sausages for everyone to share. While we were eating this guy came by riding a giant chicken.

After lunch we decided to go through the home arts building. I always love seeing the fun things in there. The canned goods, and the baked goods and candies, and the quilts and dresses and crocheted things. I really liked the cute dino crocheted edging on this baby blanket. I need to learn how to do stuff like THIS!

By the time we were done in the home arts building, the kids had been asking to go to “Little Hands on the Farm” for quite awhile. Kyle decided that we should just and do it, so they could stop asking.

When the kids were done going through the little farm and they had turned their play money in for a treat at the store, we worked our way back towards the fishing pond. We went into a building that we had never explored before. It turned out to be full of vendors. We purposely avoided the building that we had found vendors in last year, so I tried to walk through this building rather quickly. Kyle and the kids however, were easily distracted, and Debby and I found ourselves standing still quite a bit to wait for Kyle and the kids to catch up. As Debby and I were waiting for Kyle and the kids to round the corner to go down the next row, Tyra came running up to tell me she lost a tooth while eating a piece of salt water taffy she got at one of the vendor booths. I had to take the tooth and wrap it in a piece of paper and put it in my purse to keep it safe.

Next we saw people taking dairy cows with FULL udders from the judging building back to the dairy building. Those poor cows walked like they were super uncomfortable. We followed, and saw that as soon as they got the cows back to their spots in the building they hooked them up to a machine to milk them. So the kids got to watch them milk the cows.

They weren’t able to use the milk from the cows though. I guess because conditions at the fair aren’t sanitary they had to just dump all that milk down a drain outside. 🙁 Tyra was very impressed with the milking of the cows and she started begging us to let her get a cow so we can have our own milk.

Then we walked through the goat building. There was some judging going on in the middle, and the kids noticed that some of these goats were being led by kids. They talked to these kids about what it’s like to raise a goat, and they talked about the kinds of things that you need to do while raising a goat. Now some of the kids want goats to raise.

I caught these goats nibbling Rexton’s toes but by the time I got my camera ready they had stopped.

We went into the 4H building next. Kyle helped the kids get their thermos’s filled using the drinking fountain. We started to walk around, but Kyle felt like we should get out to the fishing pond to wait in line for the next fishing session. It was sprinkling though and I didn’t want to stand out in the rain with the little ones, so Debby and I walked around the 4H building while Kyle took the kids that wanted to go fishing out to wait in line at the fishing pond. He sent me a message when it was time for them to start fishing and so Debby and I went out to watch. Thankfully it wasn’t too rainy by this point.

This year, they picked one boy and one girl from each fishing session to win a fishing pole. Jeremy and Dinah both ended up winning.

We finished up our time at the state fair, by checking out the agricultural entries and the bees, viewing the chickens and rabbits, and we let the kids go down the big slide this year.

On our way to the front gate of the fair we bought a huge bag of kettle corn, and we went to the van to start loading up the kids. Kyle ran back in the fair to buy some tiny donuts that we saw on our way to the kettle corn. They were fresh and warm and oh so yummy. 🙂

They just keep falling out

It feels like Jeremy is always losing teeth these days. This time I think I heard someone say he walked into a door and it just fell out…or something like that. I heard multiple kids trying to explain what happened and so it was a lot of chaos where nobody actually heard what really happened. It was loose to begin with though so if he did walk into a door it didn’t have to try very hard to knock it out. 😛

Dare Devil Jeremy

We had been planning to go through the garage this Labour Day weekend, hopefully to throw away lots of things we don’t need anymore, but, at least, to reorganise it. Since we had the garage open, the kids took to their bikes and were roaming the neighbourhood.

Every so often, Jeremy would come back and ask me to go with him, then he would take off again when I wasn’t able to. Finally, I was in a position to take a break, and hopped on my bike to follow him.

He was going to the dirt area behind the houses, a block over, and found some of the dirt paths kids were using on their bikes. He had braved one of the longer paths, riding down it and up the other side, and kept trying to encourage me to follow him. I wasn’t in the mood to follow him, but at least I recorded a video of his going down, on my phone.

Toothless Jeremy

Jeremy lost another tooth tonight, and he really loved showing it off. 🙂

Adam’s first Fathers and Sons campout

The boys have been looking forward to each year’s Fathers and Sons camp out, even though I typically don’t care for roughing it in the great outdoors. With the craziness of Rebecca’s camping trip, I figured we simply wouldn’t go, but she notified me that the little girls would have someone to watch them, so I prepared for the trip. Adam didn’t really know what was going on, but was thrilled to be in the small car with just his brothers.

This year, we went to Spanish Fork Canyon, which has been much nicer than the closer Willow Park campgrounds in Saratoga Springs. We had a neighbouring campground to last year’s, just up on top of the hill, surrounded by trees, but also providing flat grassy areas for tents, and a pavilion with benches. At the head of the pavilion was a large brick fireplace.

We weren’t first there, but when we arrived there was enough of a selection of tent sites that we could easily pick where to set up. I chose a place just north of the pavilion, close to the trees, to not be distracted at night by the lights and chatter once the kids started coming to bed. This was our first year using a giant tent we purchased at Costco, claiming to fit twelve people. It was quite impressive, with two rooms divided by a zipped wall, plus one of the rooms could have been opened into a mesh lined patio.

The older boys played around in it a bit, then wandered off to seek out activities to do. I basically spent the time following Adam to keep him out of trouble.

As the evening progressed, and more people showed up, our tent became a hit with the boys who wanted to come in and hang out. I didn’t mind, as long as they didn’t track dirt into it, and kept it zipped. More people set up in the pavilion, to eat and play. The fireplace was lit and some people started on their Dutch Oven desserts. A common theme at these campouts, is for some of the guys to bring their Magic The Gathering cards, and this time was no different. The pavilion had lights, at least, so the fireplace was mainly for entertainment use. The boys started to notice they could run off into the bushes and bring back weeds that they could throw into the fireplace, and they also found a mouse in the area, which they scared around the fireplace until it ran off.

Once it got dark, we started to wrap up the evening. I like how our ward has mainly young families, so most of the people who came had little kids, and wanted to go to bed early. Adam was starting to get cranky and noticeably tired, so I carried him to our tent and put him down for the night. I also started closing up the tent windows, and my ears picked up a faint scritching sound. At first, I thought that mouse from earlier, was trying to get inside the tent, but then I saw its shadow on the inside, crawling up the wall! And, with Adam sleeping and it being dark, I had limited options. I ended up using the flashlight feature on my mobile phone, chasing it around and using a shoe to try and knock it out, before my adventure woke Adam. Fortunately, he stayed asleep through the chaos. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop running until I had knocked it out with the shoe, so I grabbed a pair of shoes to pick it up, and tossed it outside the tent.

Ethan and Jeremy were in the pavilion, presumably watching some of the older guys play Magic and similar. I ended up falling alseep with Adam, waking later to find Ethan and Jeremy had wandered to bed on their own.

In the morning, we had typical Fathers and Sons breakfast, consisting of meat products, sausage and bacon, plus pancakes, all cooked on dutch oven griddles. Everyone ate their full and we were done with the event, as the campground needed to be cleared by 12:15. Everyone started packing up their tents, with ours being one of the last, and we left to return home and take a shower.