22 February

When I was a little girl, every time we'd go to a new physician (which happened a handful of times -- retirements, moves, insurance changes), my mom would say, "Look at my daughter's tonsils. They are the size of large grapes. I don't think they are supposed to touch each other and inhibit her breathing every time she gets sick." The response was always the same: "Well, they are really big, but tonsillectomies have really fallen out of fashion."

Thirty years later, I still get sick more than most people I know. My kids catch a cold or two each winter; Fiona usually throws up a few times. My husband usually catches one serious bug and a couple of other minor ones, but he's a teacher -- he's exposed to "everything", right? It makes sense he'd catch a few more things than our healthy, homeschooled children. But I catch everything. And it lingers and lingers. 

Today, I'm on Day 14 of the worst cold I've had this season (and I've already had a few). It's probably going to progress to bronchitis. Last year, the year before, and a couple of years before that, I had bronchitis that progressed to pneumonia. (I understand and fully appreciate the reluctance to prescribe anitbiotics these days, with more and more antibiotic-resistant illnesses. But it's hard to get anyone to believe me that I probably need them, even when I have been coughing for 6 straight weeks. My children have never had antibiotics, so I'm not a "drug seeker". Ha!)

I don't know if it's really my tonsils. But I do know I have a long and irritating relationship with winter colds. And I am so tired of it. 

Two weekends ago, my husband and I had the chance to go to a nice hotel for a night (we had a gift certificate). My mom had the kids, and we were so excited to spend the evening out, enjoying dinner out, listening to live music at our favorite place, room service in the morning. Within a few minutes of checking into the hotel, I was hit with my cold symptoms from out of nowhere. We ended up staying in, I was asleep before 9:00, my husband had to run out to Walgreens for palliative measures. It wasn't fun. I'm tired of being sick.

I know, this is just a downer blog post right before the weekend. But I've got nothing else. I've spent the last two full weeks in bed, 4 of those days with serious laryngitis. My spirits are down.

I'm going to the doctor today. I hope they can do something for me. We have birthdays next week! I want to be well enough to enjoy them. 

{Oh! By the way! My blog has its own domain name now. You can get here via www.uncommon-grace.com now! The Typepad address still works as well. Please note the hyphen in the name. My "actual" domain is still owned by evil GoDaddy and they want over $4,000 for it!}

A week in the life : Friday

Yesterday, we:

• I had a dentist appointment first thing, so my husband, who had teacher planning but no students or meetings that day, stayed home long enough for me to go. It was great to slip away by myself, and I hoped to fit in 10 glorious minutes of knitting in the waiting room, but they called me right back. Darn!
• took a mid-morning nap (all of us, except Daddy, who headed back to work)
• had a variation of a beet salad that Kyrie shared years ago for lunch (on her old blog, so there's no link, but it's essentially: equal parts lightly boiled or steamed beets cut into matchsticks -- as you can see, mine are sliced, but matchsticks are better -- and green beans, also very lightly steamed. Toss with nuts of your choice -- Kyrie suggested hazelnuts, I think?, but I used walnuts -- dress with your favorite dressing -- I mix up my own -- and crumble some cheese on top [blue cheese, feta, goat cheese, etc.] -- which I omit because Elisabeth doesn't like cheese)
• more laundry and dishes
• picked up my sister and niece (the house above is not theirs, but is up the street from theirs -- they live in a great old city neighborhood)
• spent the afternoon at IKEA with my sister and niece
• saw a double rainbow out the window while eating supper there, which was extremely hard to photgraph through those windows, as they were not that clean ;)
• bought nothing at IKEA 
• spent the evening playing at my sister's house
• came home, kids asleep in the car, to find that my husband had picked up a 6-pack of hard cider for us to enjoy together with fans blowing the cool of the night into our living room
• made yesterday's post before absolutely crashing into bed!

This was maybe my favorite day of the week so far, even though I don't love shopping and so a trip to IKEA isn't really my ideal way to spend a day. But I really, really love hanging out with my sister and we don't get to do it often enough because of our husbands' widely divergent work schedules. (Not that we can't do stuff with the dads along, but we rarely do because of family time.)

I'm having fun with these and I'm looking forward to sharing the last two days with you!

At the pool

One of my favorite things about summertime is all the swimming. I was on swim team myself through my childhood and teens, and it's been one of my favorite things as a parent to do with my kids. We've been doing 5-day-a-week swimming lessons all summer long since Elisabeth was three. Last year was her first year on a swim team, and she loves it. We have thought about doing a year-round team (that's what I did as a girl), but I'll be honest that the logistics of it, with my kids being relatively far apart in age, is a bit daunting to me still. Maybe in the fall; we'll see. 

For now, we are enjoying our three hours a day (at two different pools!) of swim team and swimming lessons. Time spent at the pool is worth every moment, to my way of thinking. I'd rather be there than just about anywhere else in the world right now. (Except the ocean, but that will have to wait until we can afford to travel again ... it's the one thing I don't like about where I live.)

These days of summer are so priceless.

Summer is ... Swim season

Here at the very end of summer, with so few posts from me in the last couple of months, I thought I would visit a few of the highlights of this summer.

The most prominent aspect of this summer (after Fiona's broken leg, I suppose) was swimming. We have always done swimming lessons for the whole summer, five days a week. But this summer, specifically, was Elisabeth's first swim (team) season.

At the beginning of the summer, she was one of the weaker swimmers on our (fairly large) team. She couldn't dive off the blocks, and had a fair share of "DQ's" (short for disqualifications). But as the summer progressed, she improved extremely rapidly. Her times kept jumping down by several seconds at each meet. She started to practice in the "harder" group. By the second week of July, she had qualified for the League championship, where she placed in the top ten in backstroke, and ultimately ended up making the State championship, as well. She was named our team's most improved girl, a title she really deserved.

For me, it was hard not to swell with pride at her accomplishments over the summer. Now, with our swim season behind us, I can look at it from another perspective. I'm proud of her, but not just for being fast, and qualifying for championships. I'm proud of her for working hard, and not complaining when it was tough. I'm proud of her for trying her best, even in the midst of being new -- to the team, to the sport, and to competition -- and not knowing what to do, and the disappointments of disqualifications. I'm proud of her for working with, and being respectful to, a number of different coaches with very different styles. For being a true teammate and friend. For rising to the occasion, working hard, learning, growing, and showing much character.

Swimming is fun. It's exciting, fast, and thrilling when your body hits the water at the start of a race.
But in the end, I shouldn't be surprised that the swimming itself was only a part of the whole; only a means to an end in what became a priceless experience.

(photos here from our state swim meet a few weeks ago)

February 1

Hi there. Did you think I disappeared? I wouldn't be surprised if you did. I only posted a couple of times in January. There are three real reasons for this: enjoying some quiet home time, feeling a bit of blog burnout, and having severe, and I do mean severe, computer problems. We bought our computer brand-new not 18 months ago, and already by this past summer, we were experiencing lots of problems. Currently it doesn't even turn on. It makes me tremble just to think about it, so I won't say any more here. But I did finally locate my installation disk for the camera software and can now upload photos here on the laptop (which I don't love to do because the screen is small and makes everything look alternately too dark or too washed out, but oh, well). Suffice it to say that the "what I made in 2009" post (including Christmas gifts -- two of which I'd love to eventually share here) will have to wait until I can finally access those photos again. I have been assured by my husband that they will be retrievable. Let's just pray, shall we?

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So what has been going on?

A little of this, a little of that.

It snowed.

We went out of town.

We saw this guy.

We had room service in our hotel room.

I knitted.

My baby turned 11 months, grew her first two teeth, and started crawling (I'm thankful that she's taking her time on these milestones -- with my third baby, I'm in no rush, and I'm glad she isn't, either!).

And now that we're into February, we're coming into birthday season -- beginning with mine on the 25th, four of our family's five birthdays will fall within six weeks of one another.

Much good, and a handful of challenges. Would we have it any other way?

love,

Grace

2009, a retrospective {part 1}

I hope you all are not tired of 2009 wrap-ups. I know I'm a bit late, but bear with me -- I've been so very sick for so long, it's making me feel really behind. Anyway, I have had a 2009 retrospective on the creating end of things in mind for a while now, but I still want to photograph a last couple of things, so I thought I would start with the life part. And of course there's some overlap.

January

Quiet days at home. Knitting the bunting. Visits with friends. Cooking, freezing, nesting. Sewing. Contractions. Waiting.

February

More contractions. More waiting. More knitting. Elisabeth's first sleepover (away). My blessingway. My birthday. Fiona Catherine. Bliss.

March

Holed up, insulated, babymooning. James turns three. Huge snowstorm. Snuggling on the couch with the baby and lots of wool while the others are out in it. Seedlings.

April

Stepping, ever so tentatively, out of the fog. Elisabeth turns seven. Seedlings (still). Fiona's baptism. My husband decides to finish his doctorate afterall. Dozens of tulips!

May

Going a-Maying. Enjoying our yard and gardens. Struggling to find a rhythm. Re-reading some of my favorite books. Elisabeth learns to ride a two-wheeler.

June

Peonies! Swimming lessons every morning. Fiona rolls over. Remembering to slow down. Roses.

July

Still at the pool every morning, knitting in tow. A rainy 4th of July. Camping. Sewing. Second grade workshop. Catharsis.

August

10 years! Fiona sits up. Stress. Exhaustion. Computer break (oh-so-good!). My sister's baby shower. Sewing.

September

Holding on to the last bits of summer. habit. Return to homeschooling. Apple orchard (twice), and apple pies. Classes for both children. My new niece.

October

Our belated Michaelmas celebration. Eurythmy. Knitting. Lots of snow. Hot cocoa many days. New high chair cushions, and Fiona's first solid foods. Marathon costume sewing. Jack-o-lanterns. Halloween. My favorite month.

November

NaBloPoMo. Church linens. Elisabeth's first sleepover (at home). Simplicity Parenting. Martinmas. Sweaters. Book reviews. Thinking ahead to advent and Christmas. Giving thanks. Making dolls.

December

My shop. habit (december). King Winter. Helen's baptism. Fun with family. My husband's graduation. Sickness (lots and lots of sickness). Small miracles. Late Christmas cards. Last-minute gift making. Stillness; peace; silence. The richness of tradition. Joy. 

Right now

Awed by the connections we all have: the way my life looks very much like yours, and yours like mine -- we're all in this thing, aren't we?

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Happy new year, friends. May 2010 (which I refuse to pronounce "twenty-ten", by the way) be your best yet.

My next post will be the creating retrospective. And I'd still like to share a few things that we did in December, in between all the sickness. And then it will be new material for the new year, I promise.

xo

Our Martinmas -- and lantern tutorial

We celebrated a beautiful Martinmas last night with a group of homeschooling friends. There were moments that were so quiet and reverent, looking around the circle of us singing together, and there were moments that were rowdy and a bit challenging to manage. But overall, it was such a delight to celebrate as a group. 

I didn't get very many pictures (just these three, in fact, and I was missing my lens!), but the few I have tell a story, I think.

We met in a large park and shared a simple meal (of pumpkin soup, bread, and cider). Then we set out, a merry little band, singing. We stopped at a couple of houses in the neighborhood, and then wound our way back into the park. In a stand of trees, we stopped and I told the story of St. Martin to our group. All was still and dark, except for our lanterns. Finally, a quieter group found its way back to the tables to pack up and bid one another farewell.

There were moments that weren't perfect. But it was beautiful -- magical, even.

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This year, we again made our "go-to" lanterns. I loved the balloon ones we made last year, but didn't want to do them two years in a row (not that my children would have minded!). I thought about making some out of beeswax (sort of like these), but ultimately decided against it because I wanted my children to be able to make their own lanterns.

These lanterns take 3-4 work sessions. You'll need heavy-weight watercolor paper (approx. 12"x18"), high-quality watercolor paints (those that come in tubes rather than the dry ones in a tray), paint brushes, smooth boards (can be made of plastic, wood, or any smooth surface) for painting on, cooking oil, paper towels, glue, a hole punch, tealights, and yarn, ribbon, or wire to make the handle.

The first day, we made our paintings, using the wet-on-wet watercolor painting method. I like to use paintings that are completely saturated in color for these, so this method is perfect for that. (I took a lot of pictures of our painting day this time; find more pictures here.)

Once the paintings were completely dry, we oiled them using cooking oil and paper towels. (This picture is actually from 2006; I don't have one from this year). It is important that the paintings are completely saturated with oil. You are not going for a light coating -- you want the paper to be soaked all the way to the back. This makes it translucent once dry. Expect each one to absorb several teaspoons of oil, at least. This is really messy and they will need to dry overnight.

The next day, we marked one of the long sides of the painting with lines that were 2" apart and 2.5" long. I cut along the lines. 

Then we glued them into a cylinder along one of the short sides, using clothespins at the ends to hold them together, and stones to weigh them down while they dried. Once the sides were dry, we folded the notched ends over and glued them shut, once again using stones as weights while they dried.

Finally, we punched holes and added our handles -- these were yarn that had been finger-knitted by Elisabeth, and glued tealights into the bottom of each lantern. It's really good for children to have running projects like this, even something like this where each work session only takes a few minutes. It's very strengthening to work on something over several days.

I hope if you try these, the instructions make sense and they turn out beautifully! Let me know if you try them. Enjoy your beautiful lanterns!

Swim

This summer my girl has become a real swimmer. And she's learned to ride a two-wheeler. And she's shot up like the weeds that I'm constantly battling in our garden. I'm a little stunned, really, that she's suddenly a big seven-year-old. I suddenly realize that I don't remember her being a baby anymore. Was she ever so tiny and buttery-soft, the way her baby sister is?

Will I just blink my eyes one day and find that my little fishy has, indeed, swum?

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Other notes for today:

+I got a lot of questions about camping with kids after this post. Alicia was way more on top of it than I was, and made this awesome post full of camping tips. Basically, she said everything I would have said, only more clearly, since my brain is in a fog this week. Anyway, the way we camp with our wee ones is not really "roughing it". It's more like setting up a home-away-from-home. Like Alicia's family, we are state park campers, and we love the air mattresses, the organized camp boxes, the roomy tent. The canopy above the picnic table is an invaluable addition. We like bathrooms, because our oldest simply cannot go to the bathroom outside, try as she might. My husband and I used to rough it more, but we have found that it's just easier with little ones to make it feel homey and familiar. I love Alicia's tip about eating well, too. 5 days on hot dogs just doesn't cut it. We make simple, real food while camping. It's easy, and there are lots of websites that offer tips on that. But basically, familiar recipes with short ingredient lists work very well.

+I'm cautiously optimistic about my technical difficulties. Scary stuff, though. I lost a lot of photos to that little drama. I see that there is recovery software for corrupted photos, but I'm not anxious to allocate $30 or $40 to it right now, since I have to buy a new compact flash card as it is. I'm hoping to get caught up both here and at near:far very soon.

+During this unintentional break, I've been sick as a dog. Really, so sick with one of those nasty, depressing summer colds.

+My shop update is coming along, very slowly. Being sick has made sewing feel undesirable this week.

+We've had some amazing and crazy weather around here lately. Two nights ago, we had a storm that was part thunderstorm, part tornado, part hurricane. (OK, not really hurricane, since we live miles and miles away from any ocean.) Lots of trees in our neighborhood fell, and many people had broken windows and worse. We were luckily spared the worst of the storm.

bear with me

I know that you all visit my blog for pretty pictures and descriptions of sweet moments in ordinary life. And, truly, that's why I visit other blogs and why I keep this one. I don't really consider this a place to step onto a soapbox, although I try to live my life with conviction, and I hope some of that transfers here. (I'll admit that sometimes I'm better at holding to my convictions than others -- my husband often points out that to be human is to be hypocritical.)

But this has been weighing so heavily on my mind in the last few days that I really want to talk about it here. I may end up taking this post down later, but I'm feeling the need to mention it for now.

On Friday morning, a 34-year-old Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death as a mob of shoppers broke down the door to the store to get a jump on their holiday shopping. Hundreds of people stepped on another human being's body in order to save some money on gifts that may be forgotten within a few days or months of being given.

That same day, I had to run a quick errand. (I should have known better -- what errand could be "quick" on the day after Thanksgiving?) I was really appalled and disappointed by what I saw that day. People were snatching things up at an astonishing rate. I heard an exchange between two shoppers that went something like this: Shopper A: "What are these?" Shopper B: "I'm not sure, but they're reduced from $10 to only $8!" And they both began to load their carts. I saw people with shopping carts piled higher than their own heads.

I am not trying to be a voice of negativity. I don't think that people should skip decorating or gift buying, and I am definitely not opposed to anyone saving some money.

But I'm wondering. I'm just wondering what this all means. What does it say about joy and festivity and generosity and our economy and humanity? What does it mean when people just buy things because they're there -- just because they can -- or that a man can be stepped on by hundreds of people without their noticing?

I don't know what the answer is. It's more complicated than one -- or many -- mothers saying, "buy less, do more" through the voices of blogs. But we could start there. We could start with our own homes, and on our own websites, and we could buy less. We could commit to handmade gifts, or we could just commit to simplifying one aspect of the holiday. We could pause before buying something and just ask if we really want it, or if the recipient will like and use it. I'm not calling for a "hard times" Christmas. But I really do think -- I really do believe -- that simple can truly be just as wonderful and magical as elaborate, and that a few carefully-chosen gifts can be much better than stacks of packages to open just for the sake of opening them. I don't think that "less is more" is just a meaningless slogan. If we can take it to heart, it really is true.

Autumn Is:

Hi, friends! I'm trying to be gentle with myself about my lack of posting around here, but of course I'm feeling guilty about being so absent. I'm still having more yucky days than not, but when I feel well, we're busy trying to take advantage of autumn -- my favorite season -- by:

~Making multiple batches of popcorn balls.

~Visiting a pumpkin patch.

~Costume making.

~Baking some apples. (Recipe here.)

~Basking in the autumn sunshine.

~Spending a day with homeschooling friends at a small local living history museum.

~Climbing trees.

~Preparing for tonight's revelry! (I promise photos!)

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Making me happy

We returned from our trip yesterday. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of driving -- I think the grand total was 3700 miles. Whew!

I had the best of intentions for uploading to flickr and even posting here a few times while we were away -- and I did upload a few things from the first day's drive to flickr, but somehow they remained private all that time. But I really had less computer time than I expected (which is really a good thing). So, now we're home. We have lots of unpacking to do in the house (we took a trip only days after moving?! what were we thinking?!), my husband was out mowing the lawn first thing this morning, and we generally have lots of easy, unscheduled summer days to look forward to now that the rush of this crazy June has passed.

I have tons of photos from the trip, and I'll get many of them up in the next few days. But for today, while I'm still in recovery mode, I thought I'd share a few things that are making me happy right now.

1. Being home

2. A meal shared with old friends (who we hadn't seen in many years) on the last night of our trip

3. Paper dolls

4. Stopping to smell the flowers on a Kentucky backroad

5. The music of Ingrid Michaelson

6. Visiting the home of my daughter's -- and my own -- childhood superstar

7. Sunsets over water

8. A blessingway for one of my dearest friends tonight

9. A new nightgown made by another very good friend

10. An afternoon at the beach

From the Land

Last weekend we visited our CSA farm and picked asparagus. It was a sunny, warm (but not hot) morning.

It didn't take too long to finish our row, with a laundry basket nearly full of the long stalks.

Afterwards, we visited with some chickens, cows, a goat, and the cutest little piglets.

The piglets ate right out of my children's hands -- they were so gentle and playful. It was great fun!

When we got home with our 8 (or so) pounds of asparagus, determined not to let it go to waste, Elisabeth and I cleaned and trimmed all of it. We blanched it in batches -- 2 minutes each -- and then submerged it in ice water until it was cool.

Then we dried it and divided it (what you see above is not all of it, either!).

Elisabeth commented several times that this work reminded her of the olden days. I knew just what she meant: working to gather our food, and then spending time preparing it in large batches to be used over a long period of time. It's so important, I believe, for children to experience this. It can be so easy to assume that all food comes from the grocery store, and to become disconnected from the source. I'm so glad that we have these opportunities through our CSA.

So, now we have about 8 meals' worth of asparagus, which is wonderful, since we are an asparagus-loving family. {For many years, I declared that it was my least favorite food. I claimed that it looked appetizing, but tasted bad. Then one time, about 3 years ago or so, we were staying with some friends and were served a meal with asparagus in it. Not wanting to be the only person not eating it (all of the children were), I went ahead and tried it. And, to my surprise, I loved it.}

And in just a couple of weeks, it'll be time to pick (and preserve) strawberries!

suddenly summer

It kind of sneaks up on you, you know? Especially after a cooler-than-usual spring. But it's here, and we're oh-so glad around here.

Enjoying the first fruits of our little garden.

First flowers, too!

A bag constantly at the ready.

Feeling awe at the beauty of summer storms -- and knowing that they sometimes bring hail and cyclones with them.

Bits of green everywhere.

Fresh braids every morning before swimming lessons.

New joys discovered as our boy is big enough to play in the water on his own -- under his mama's hawk-like watch, of course.

Hoping that your season -- whether summer or winter -- is shaping up as beautifully as ours is!

New York

Since my wee ones are sick and our routine is a bit on its head this week, I thought I should finally do my big New York post.

Whew. It's been a whole month since the trip, and I don't want to do too much description of it -- just share photos.

It was fantastic to spend the weekend in New York with my mom. The weather was glorious until the morning we left, when it became chilly and foggy.

We did some shopping -- mostly on Erin's recommendations.

We met up with an old friend (who I hadn't seen since her wedding almost 6 years ago) at a cute tea shop. Of course, I forgot to take a picture of my friend in the midst of all the catching up.

I had my very first blog meet-up, with Kristin, who came into New York for the morning on one of the days we were there. I can't believe how amazing it was to connect face-to-face with someone I'd met through blogging. It just keeps astounding me as I think about it! She gave me a sweet birthday gift, which I just realized I haven't photographed yet. I'll fix that later today.

We ate at two great restaurants (both were Kristin's suggestions). La Paella was beautiful and yummy. Becco was just so delicious. And we ate at Sardi's for the tourist experience.

And we had lunch one day at Serendipity3, because I just had to go there -- for the touristy thing, too. (And my sandwich was so good that I'm still thinking about it.)

We went to see The Country Girl on Broadway starring Frances McDormand and Morgan Freeman. And we went to see The Phantom of the Opera -- which was an experience.

We stopped at Purl and Purl Patchwork. The girls in Purl noticed that my bag was made with Joelle's fabric, though the girls in Purl Patchwork did not! I got a little bit of Liberty of London fabric to make a little something for my girl.

 

There is nothing like April in New York.

We walked -- a lot. We rode the subway -- not quite as much. And we took some cabs, too.

We nearly saw the Pope, who was visiting at the same time, but just missed his motorcade.

Best of all, we saw Satyagraha at the Met (click that link and watch the 4-minute video! It's amazing!), which was one of the most inspiring experiences of my life. Really and truly. It was beautiful, and just esoteric enough for me. ;)

It was a great trip.

Green Week ~ 4

Yesterday we went swimming at our local rec center, and we had quite an adventure. The fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building, sopping wet, on a 30-degree day. The fire department came and hauled out some kind of tank. It was all quite exciting.

More about swimming next week.

A bit of R & R

Hmm ... is it really so late? I can't believe that it's taken me all day to get this post up. One of those days, I guess.

Last night I had the special privilege of spending the evening out at a pub with two awesome ladies. Both are so brilliant and funny, it's humbling to think that they're my real life friends. A night out with some girlfriends was just what I needed after a long weekend of nothing but coughing and dollmaking. Not that I'm complaining too much about the dollmaking! ;) Thanks for a fab night out, Meghan and Kim.

My weekend in photos

Friday: An evening out with two friends. Wonderful, and just what I needed!

Saturday: Pumpkin patch with my husband and wee ones. Perfect weather, perfect day! Later, some sewing and movie watching with another friend.

Sunday: Woke up to snow. Cozy day at home with those I love most.

I hope your weekend was just as sweet!

More photos of my weekend on flickr.

Yard Envy

My friend Laura has the most beautiful backyard. While she definitely has a talent for gardening, I love the small details in her yard even more. A little fairy peeking out here, some fun little stump mushrooms there.

As much as I moan and complain about not having a yard (we've only lived in a free-standing house with a yard for 10 months of our 8 year marriage), the one good thing is that when we finally do move to a place with a yard, no matter how big or small, I have a friend whose established yard greatly inspires me. Oh, and who has already agreed to help me plan and execute mine when the time comes. (Right, Laura?)

Oh, and look at the photo on the bottom right corner. It's one of Erin's twirly skirts, which Laura made beautifully for her daughter. Who is, might I add, in first grade this year. Where does the time go?

From the Fair

Though I don't consider myself to be a mama who keeps her wee ones out past their bedtime or overstimulated in general, there is that once-a-year excursion to "the fair" (really an amusement park). Once a year, none of the "rules" about bedtime or healthy food apply. And it's oh-so-fun!