County Fair

Several weekends ago we made a trip to Ohio to visit my family and spend some time at our county fair in my hometown.  I can’t say enough how much I enjoyed it!  Getting to see family, playing competitive ladder golf with my dad, shooting off my dad’s potato gun, meeting my sister’s foreign exchange students for the year, and getting to spend some sweet time with my mom while she was off of chemo for a bit meant more than one would ever know.  Going to the creamery one evening, Cody spotted a sign for Lake Cody where I had swam when I was a kid.  He thought the name was pretty awesome and wanted his photo with it.  My dad took him there the day we left, so he could get his picture taken with the sign of the lake that shares his name.  We rode bumper boats (photos in a previous post) which the kids had never done before.  We laughed and played and talked, and it was just so nice.  We rode the Freak Out at the fair which felt like a whole new riding experience.  Cody and Anna loved it!  We saw turkeys in my parents’ yard everyday while there and woke up to four of them out our bedroom window the one morning.  Anna spotted them first!  We pet the bunnies at the fair. I found it cute how the kids thought the name on the cage was the name of the bunny, when it was actually the name of the child who was entering their bunny to be judged.  I could hear Anna calling to the bunny, “Here, Katie!  Come here, Katie!”  Dylan told me his favorite bunny was Zack!  The kids found a bunny that always scurried over to them whenever they walked by.  It wanted them to pet it, and they happily obliged.  When we left there, Anna asked if we could come back to the fair on our next visit.  She wanted to visit “her” bunny again.  I explained that the fair is only once a year.  I know how she felt, though, because I wish I could just keep my hometown in close proximity, and whenever I wanted to visit I could just hop in the car and be there in a matter of seconds and receive the joy I know that waits there.  But there are good things no matter where home lies, and it makes the special moments together even sweeter.  And we wait and look forward to the next ones God brings…