2010 County Fair

After a very long, hot and fabulous week at the fair, Skeeter is back at "Lane of Dreams" and we are home. It was an amazing week. I have hundreds of photos of Shayla (Imagine that, wink) and I will share some as time permits. I'm finally home catching up and Miss Shayla is off "splunking" with a church youth group today, exploring a cave. What fun!

Friday morning Claire said, "How would Shayla like to show Duke? We brought the dragon costume if you have a princess costume for her to wear. We'll enter her in the "Costume Class". I said, "Do I have a princess dress for Shayla? I even have matching red boots!" They told me to see if she wanted to do it and to run home to grab the dress and an iron for the dragon costume. When I went back to our camper to wake up Shayla and ask her if she wanted to show Duke she said, "Mom! Are you serious? This is a dream come true!" She has told us that riding Duke (the Tiffin University mascot - well, according to the Equestrian Team) is on her "Bucket List". This was close enough and they won 4th place.


The "Princess" getting ready to show Duke in his TU Dragon costume. I think this picture is sooooooooooo funny! (And she said the red boots are too small and hurt her feet. "The judge won't see under my long dress anyway.")



Her pickles may not have won anything at the county fair, but it sure brought us a lot of smiles!




Shayla, still in her English clothes since the horse show ran so late, watching Supershowmanship with one of her awesome 4H advisers and cheering on Matt and Leah. Fun times!

Shayla was THRILLED that two of the 4Hers who qualified for "Super Showmanship" (means they won showmanship for their animal and get to try their hand at showing ALL of the fair animals for the big event Saturday night) asked her to teach them how to show a horse (Both AWESOME SE kids and sweet former students of mine). Shayla said, "Mom, that was another dream come true! I've always wanted to teach someone how to show a horse!" (Congrats to beautiful Leah who came in 4th overall! Wow!)

Congrats to Matt who came in 3rd overall in the Supershowmanship Competition! Impressive, very impressive!

This was certainly a "highlight" for all of us! Shayla talked her dad into entering the "Generation Gap" competition. The riders have to be at least ten years apart in age. The older rider goes first while the younger riders stand in the middle and then they switch. There were 19 groups of riders entered and needless to say they didn't place, but they had a good time. Check out Shayla laughing and cheering and shouting directions to her dad while he competes. What a hoot!

Go, Shayne! You're doing great!

A quiet moment with Skeeter during Showmanship

English Riding. We all thought this was the category where Shayla improved the most over last year.

We were pleased Shayla wanted to try contesting on Monday night. She's so cautious so it was nice to see her "race" - well, as much as Skeeter will "race" - hee hee!

A smile with Western Pleasure. Shayla had a rough year in terms of winning ribbons on her horse this year. Last year she won the overall beginner division so we skipped intermediate and put her right in to the advanced division this year. She won a lot of 4th and 5th places out of 5 and 6 entries most of the time. She wasn't discouraged and said she still had fun. I love that little sweetie's amazing attitude! (And although I wanted her entered in intermediate division this year Shayne said, "She needs to play with the big kids and see she needs to work harder to get better. You don't get better without competition.")

Late last night as we sat around the kitchen table eating some Chinese food I made after a long week, we shared our favorite and least favorite memories of the 2010 County Fair. Shayla said, "The dance!" was her favorite thing about the fair. As you can see, she had a blast. We turned the horse arena into the "dance floor". The dirt ("footing") was so soft and fluffy it was like sand. She was with her 4H Horse friends playing "Horse" for hours while Shayne and I played cards with fellow parents and even got to square dance with them too. Great times! The dance was my favorite part of the week too!

She enjoyed competing in the "Ride and Run" for the first time this year.

Go, Skeeter boy, go!

State Fair Judging: She did not score in the Top 20 percent with either one of her projects (Arts as an Expression & Designing Interiors) but we had a wonderful time with mom and Traci and her "boys" at the State Fair.


Yep, check it off my "Bucket List"! I've now seen the Butter Carved Statue at the Ohio State Fair! It was bigger than I expected! While I'm glad they are going to recycle it, I'm glad that won't be done at BGSU, but another Ohio university.

Enjoying the Ohio State Fair on Thursday with Traci

Help with the ice cream from Grandma Nonee! We went to the State Fair on the anniversary of my father's death. We both thought it was nice that Shayla gave us something "fun" to do on such a sad day.