Until Next Year...

The Apache County Fair 2008 is over. It certainly was more interesting than last year. I did something new this year. The rest of my family LOVES the fair. They can walk around and look at things all day - no really - ALL DAY! Me, on the other hand, I like looking around for about an hour, maybe sitting down and listening to the high school kid with the guitar for a while, then I'm good to go. But this year, I decided to volunteer to help. My thinking? Well, I thought if I was more involved, it would be more fun for me. It worked!

On Wednesday, I took the day off of work to help with "Registration Day" in the "Art Department". I was at the BUB (Big Ugly Building) from 11am until about 9pm - with a break at 3:00pm to pick up Josh from school, and a break at 5:15pm to pick up David from practice. Along with Myrna (the Dept. Chairperson & friend), and a few other volunteers, we registered close to 300 people and easily over 500 pieces of art during that time. For any of those who know me, I'm an organization FREAK (although not at my house - hmm.) which I believe helped in this situation! The next day, when I dropped by the fair to pick up the kids (Jon had dropped them off earlier in the day), Myrna asked if I would take over the Art Dept. for her. Her husband was the Fair Manager this year (1st year) and she ended up helping him out A LOT too... so for next year, she joked that she would either have to give up the Art Dept. or her husband - lol. She lovingly gave up the Art Dept. I'm pretty excited... I will have to plan for the time off of work next year so I can use paid time off, but it should be a good time!

As you can see from the last post, I also entered some photographs in the fair. Next year I plan on entering WAY more... I'll be more prepared, knowing kind of what the judges will be looking for.

My kind gesture of 'volunteering' also brought me the blessing of heading up the "Mutt Show". I was quite nervous until it actually happened... but when it did, it turned out to be pretty fun. It was a laid back kids dog show with categories like, "Worst Groomed", "Prettiest", "Longest Ears", "Smallest Dog", etc... and the 'handlers' had to be 15 years or younger. I think I did things the 'easy' way... but no one seemed to notice. I even got some moms coming up to me talking about how this was their kids first year here and how they were already talking about what they want to have their dog do for next year... and thanking me. It really made me feel good :). It was a few hours on Saturday - I will be happy to do it again next year!

I was also very pleased to have the support of Jon. He supported 100% and was ok with me being out late (of course I had the boys with me - lol) and didn't say an angry word about me saying "Oh, I've got to go do this now..." or "I can't leave just yet... I've got to go help with this...". He was happy to let me and he was happy to wander the fairgrounds stopping to talk to friends along his way. I'm blessed to have an awesome husband (and kids)who loves and supports me!

Until next year... (when I'm hoping to have more enteries... cupcakes, zucchini bread, butter, etc.)