Well, I am not sure where to begin with Fryeburg Fair week this year! We can finally say we did everything we wanted this year AND came home with a pig. Sunday we spent the day visiting with the animals, eating enormous donuts and watching the Fireman's muster for most of the day. James slipped and fell on the misty bleachers and got an impressive egg on his forehead, narrowly avoiding a concussion. Everyone's favorite stop is always Old McDonald's farm where the kids can feed the goats. We thought Noah was too old this year, but the kind ladies let him join his siblings anyway:)
With the Pelkeys and Nannie "camped" in tents in a field/parking lot next to the campground it was quite an adventure. Monday we spent a large part of the day at the skillet throw where Hillary had to defend her title. This year, as a direct result of Gabe's complaining last year;), they added an anvil toss for the men. All was very entertaining and to make a long story short, three hours later, Hillary AND Jacob walked away as champions. Gabe and Cody also placed and got ribbons for their age group, but didn't quite measure up.
Tuesday started as an interesting day when Audrey woke up at the crack of dawn vomiting... I will just go on record to say that being in a such close quarters with a vomiting child was a bummer. I was not feeling so great myself, so, in retrospect, this was likely some sort of food poisoning from all of the fantastic fair food we had been eating. Gabe took the boys to the fair for the morning while Audrey and I rested. Grampy Grampy, Grampy and Grammy all were able to join us for the afternoon and were a big help keeping the boys occupied with rides and carnival games.
Wednesday morning we went back and forth FOREVER trying to decide wether to pack up and get on the road or to spend one more day at the fair. We ultimately decided to get the camper all packed up and then spend just a few hours at the fair. This was the first year we were at the fair on a pig scramble day where one of our kids was eligible to enter. We got Noah over to sign up, but we were clear with him that there were lots of kids putting their names in the lottery so there was very little chance his name would be drawn. I have been telling Gabe for years that if the kids ever get a pig we were keeping it... I don't think he believed me...
As brief backstory, the pig scramble is where 12 kids between the ages of 8 & 10 (at this fair) are set free with 10 piglets in the pulling ring. At the end, if you are lucky enough to catch a pig and put it in the grain bag then you have a choice: you can either bring the pig home to raise it or you can sell it back to the farmer for $40.
We arrived at the pulling ring 30 minutes before the scramble and there was Noah's name on the list. He was ecstatic, I was ecstatic, the kids were ecstatic... Gabe was excited that Noah got to participate, but adamant that we were selling the pig back. Well, over the next 30 minutes we all prodded Gabe a bit, (including the people in the stands around him)... Gabe must have gotten swept up in the excitement because he was one of the first people in the ring to take pictures after Noah caught the pig and the next thing I knew we were taking Dottie home. I thought for sure we were going to be taking it elsewhere to be raised, but after taking the "How to raise your scramble pig" seminar from the farmer, Gabe seemed *almost* excited to keep the pig at our house (he wasn't ready to admit it yet though).
So, meet Dottie! Noah did such a great job catching her. The funniest thing was how proud of him his sibling were. He was our little celebrity. James just kept saying over and over, "Noah, I am just so proud of you for catching that pig".
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