Canal Days

Canal Days is the name that our little town festival goes by and commemorates each August. I consider this weekend a "hump" of sorts as it marks summertime being half over and another hurdle to monopolize our time. Since Eric is on the volunteer fire department and the firemen host a food stand in the town park, much of Eric's free time (READ: "all of his time") is spent lending a hand selling food, serving food or selling raffle tickets. I, on the other hand, volunteer to work a few random shifts in booths or elsewhere that I am needed. Thank God that my mom and dad have begun to make it a tradition to come visit us for the weekend to help take care of the kids and make our lives easier. I don't know how we could ever get through it without them.

This weekend was especially interesting given that my parents had already arrived at our house when I came home from work on Friday, only to find Elaina cuddled up, watching a movie with my dad and roasting with a 103 degree fever. And do you want to just imagine the temperament of a tired 3 year old with a 103 fever? Answer: not so good.

Despite Elaina's fever and Eric's limited guest appearances in our house, we actually had a great weekend. And since it will be impossible (and likely boring for you) for me to recap the whole weekend, I present: photo-telling. (I just made up that phrase and decided that I like it to narrate a whole story without a lot of words.)

So here we go on a photo-telling tour....

This picture of Lincoln was during the Grand Parade which marches right in front of our house. Seriously, the kid was in total awe of the whole thing. He loved it all. I imagine that his sweet, little blue eyes were awfully tired in the end since he barely shut them to blink throughout the whole parade.
And, HEY... who is that on top of that van? No other than Ronald M. himself! Cool!

And as much as I talk about "Nancy the Babysitter," would you like to see what she actually looks like? Nancy is sitting with Elaina in front and her real life granddaughter, Gracie (also Elaina's friend) aside of them both. This was the first time that my mom had met Nancy and it was a delight she and her husband both came down to enjoy the parade with all of us.

Elaina is pretty lucky to have so many Grandpa's (and Pop-Pop's) who love her so much. This Grandpa didn't seem to mind hanging out with his favorite granddaughter.After getting ice cream in the middle of the day for no good reason except that it was there, we went to see Eric host the canoe race. Elaina wasn't terribly impressed with any part of the canoes and just really wanted to throw rocks in the water.

Pretty much unrelated to anything "canal days," just one cute boy who loves his cars.

I got two shifts working the monster truck inflatable bounce house. And honestly, it was so much fun! Not because I bounced, but because the kids enjoyed it so much and that's all Elaina wanted to do is jump. Good sign that she was medicated and feeling better. Best of all was Sunday night when she got to jump with her best friend, Ali and no other big kids.

And what evening is really complete until you have 15 pounds of candy to sort through? This is Elaina's haul from the parade on Sunday. That's alot of candy, folks.

Finally, Elaina was hell bent on using my camera to take my picture for a change. I have to say that this picture actually turned out pretty good. No editing, just a lucky shot. Lincoln even mustered up a half smile.

So... weekend in a nutshell: GREAT! The weather was awesome, our company was unbeatable and when Elaina peaked at feeling good, we were all happy. Things that we could have done without this weekend: Elaina's fever and attitude, Lincoln crying his head off in the middle of the night and passing this summer hurdle reminding us that summer is already half over.