My Fair Ladies

It's that time again. The flags are flying, the barn stalls have fresh straw, and the final figures have been entered into the 4-H beet books. The opening of the county fair is only days away, which means that the center of the universe is about to shift to that little piece of paradise off Main. Life in this cute little valley all but shuts down during fair week. And dude, I am NOT exaggerating. Funeral have been postponed.
Everybody usually gets involved in the fair in one way or another. The 4-H kids enter pigs, heifers, rabbits, turkeys, goats and other critters along with beets and cakes and clothing. The adults enter things like photos, quilts, garden produce and woodcarvings. There are floats to build for the parade that the town shuts down to watch. There are concerts, rodeos, auctions, rides, food, and of course, booths.

Our stake has a booth that will eventually house all of the entries grown, baked, or stitched by tour sweet sisters. The stake Relief Society Presidency is in charge of decorating that booth, so Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were dedicated to the decorating process.
My greatest contribution was shellacking a beautiful loaf of bread that my mother and I created. The process of shellacking that loaf of bread taught me three valuable lessons: 1) Shellacking is a fun word to say. Shellacking, shellacking, shellacking ... 2)Shellacking bread on the front stoop really confuses the neighbors, and 3)If blogging ever loses its appeal, shellacking baked good would be a great hobby.

The booth is a big job and, because our stake's efforts have scored so well in the past, we felt a bit of pressure to do something extra special. And as everyone knows, you can't have an extra special booth without extra special people. Enter our fair ladies: Elizabeth and her sweet mother, Kristi and her sweet mother, and our dear Zealanda.

Building the booth was a blast, but I think that Liz and Zealanda may have had a bit too much fun with the staple gun. But they did manage to control themselves just enough to avoid any punctured eyeballs or backsides.

The brains of the operation belong to our beloved Cindy B. She willingly and cheerfully accepted this huge responsibility with only a few short weeks to prepare and did a beautiful job.

Oh, and did I mention that our beloved Cindy is also my beloved cousin? So are Bonnie and Kristi. That is another fun thing about the fair. It always turns into a series of impromptu family/friend/class/ward reunions.

The booth came together nicely and will be worthy of all of the ribbon-winning-entries by our sweet stake sisters.

Cindy's ideas tied in perfectly with the theme, which should score us some extra points. I a trying to be humble and charitable and such, but I am pretty excited to see what the judges think.

We are up against some pretty impressive competition, like the Oakley Stake...

... and that other stake across Overland.

So, now that the entry booth is ready to rock, it is time to focus on the three most important fair activities:

1) Coming up with new and inventive excuses to get out of working in the stake food booth...

2) Attending the rodeo... 3) Supporting some good causes by putting some money down on a few Road Apple Roulette squares.

Go go ahead and bring on fair week, with its yummy food, yummy cowboys, and .... um .... not-so-yummy practice of betting on horse poop. We're ready for you!