Horrifying Harvest Hell

Y'all, if you have a sign a waiver form before you get to visit a Harvest Festival, prepare for the worst. I'm not kidding.

First, the hay ride: 

Wide open wagon being pulled by a tractor driving very fast around pedestrians.  I'm surprised Heidi didn't bounce out the back.  She actually ran away from us and scurried up on one of these wagons and wouldn't get down when I called her.  I thought for sure they were just going to let an unattended three year old go for a ride.

Second, the petting zoo:

If a puffy-eyed chicken will just sit there while little kids pet it and pet it and pet it and pet it, the chicken is probably sick.  There were other animals, like goats, sheep, midget cows, and frantic horses...but my friend's baby got his face BIT almost right off and they weren't even petting the horse, just standing near its stall. They had to fill out an incident report. Poor baby is going to have quite the shiner tomorrow.

Third, the archery range:

Daniel visited this Harvest Festival yesterday with another family, so he felt comfortable in the archery range.  I kept waiting for safety talks from the range master or at least some crowd control, but it was every archer for themselves.

I'm so glad I have enough sane hands on deck to help out.  Daniel did manage to walk right in front of Lula as she was pulling back her bow and got a sharp correction from me.  Jason kept trying to run out and gather arrows before the call.  I joked with the range master about the lack of skill and he replied, "Oh, I can't see a thing. I'm practically blind." Sure enough, he had coke bottle glasses. Why was he even there? How could he be a safe monitor?

Good job, Downens!  All the arrows either on the hill or on the ground in front of the bales!

Fourth, the boating/canoeing:

This activity was completely unmanned.  The storage for life jackets and oars/paddles was wide open and there wasn't an employee in sight anywhere.  People were just helping themselves and taking the boats out.  I learned my lesson a long time ago about taking any number of my kids in a boat and flat out refused to let them go.

I (we) did get some cute pics:

Selfie!

Genna is thoroughly annoyed with Heidi at this point.

Lula and her buddy that she loves so much!

I can't take this kid anywhere.

I was able to bribe the kids with little suckers to get them to leave the line for face painting (a friend looked like he had a flabby pickle painted on his forehead, so.... talent? Lacking.) and we were able to get to the van for my escape.

The best part of today was getting a text from Ian because he got an A on a history test.  I knew if he worked hard, he could bring his grade up from a C to an A.

Red Wing Round Up (vaulting)

Genevieve's vaulting season started out with a bang at the Fall Red Wing Round Up.  This was her first competition at Bronze.  Her goal was to score in the top five of the nine girls that were competing at her level.

Her final score for the first day were an average of her compulsories and her freestyle:

She placed FIRST in compulsoires and THIRD for freestyle, so Second Place overall for Round One.

Her final score for the weekend was calculated by averaging her final score for round one with her score for Round Two compulsories:

She came in third place for Round 2 so her final score for her first competition at bronze was...

SECOND PLACE

In addition to her normal event, she also did a barrel pairs with a teammate and then a costume freestyle.

I surprised her today with an early birthday present:

A Parrot?

This morning Heidi came bouncing into the boys' room and asked if she could have a parrot.

Pictures of Heidi taken while waiting at orchestra

Me: A Parrot?
Heidi: Yes!
Me: As a pet?
Heidi: No!
Me: A parrot like a bird?
Heidi: No! Not a bird! A Parrot!
Me: Hm. Why?
Heidi: To eat!

She spent an hour running into the parking lot. She was told she had no brain.

Me: To eat????  Do you mean...a carrot?
Heidi: No! A PARROT!
Me: ... do you mean maybe a PEAR?
Heidi: YES!

Because anyone with a brain wouldn't try to get run over.

We don't have any pears. Sorry. And no, we are not going to get a parrot either!

Scorpions and Megadeth Concert

Mark and I haven't left the house alone together in almost six years.  THIS was the last time. That was back when Ami and Laura could come watch their younger siblings.  Now we have Ian and Genevieve (Shane was on a sailing trip).  Jason didn't make it easy for me thought.  In case you can't understand him in the video, he is saying, "Don't leave me!"

Last summer Mark bought concert tickets! Thinking about going to a rock concert gave us both anxiety.  He was worried about being late and navigating parking/seat finding.  I was worried about being boxed in by old pot-smoking rockers and getting trampled and maybe even lost!

Our first stop was dinner out:

 ...out as in a quick stop at the grocery store for healthy chips and Lara bars.  Nope, Mark will not sway from his healthy eating for a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I had a sandwich. With bacon.

Parking was easy, finding our spots was easy, and waiting for the concert to start was fun.  There were so many people to watch!  So many old rockers!

We were in the last row as far as you can get from the stage and there was no one next to us, no one behind us, and barely anyone around us.  We didn't even have to stand.  That made my night.

Megadeth isn't my favorite band (ahem).  They were loud.  The people were pretty well-behaved.  I guess when you are an old rocker, you are up past your bedtime and don't have the energy to cause trouble.  But I loved the Scorpions!  They played most of my favorite songs.

And now that we've done this once, we can probably do it again!