Today we visited the DuPage County Fair. Charlie had entered a Lego sculpture in the open class. For 4 years, Charlie has anxiously awaited meeting the age requirement. This year he was finally old enough. A couple of months ago, he set to work on a 1600 piece kit. He finished it about 2 weeks ago. On Monday, I was looking through the papers we received when registering, to figure out where and when to drop off his item, when the phrase "original" item jumped out at me. I frantically read and re-read the rules and saw that for "Lego Item - Open Class", no kits were allowed. I knew in year's past, I had seen kits. I called the fair offices to ask if no kits meant what I thought it meant. The very nice lady on the phone explained that they used to allow kits, but they changed the rules this year to only original items. This was 24 hours before we were supposed to drop off Charlie's entry! Needless to say, this was bad news. I explained to Charlie what had happened, apologizing profusely. I gave him the choice of just skipping it, or trying to create something quickly (really quickly). He said he still wanted to enter something, and I told him I would help by gathering and sorting legos. This year's fair theme is "Something to Crow About". Charlie created a (somewhat abstract) bird's nest, with three eggs, one hatched, with a baby bird poking out, and a crow perched on the side of the nest. It really was good, considering he whipped it together in a couple of hours. Unfortunately, the competition was tough, and he did not place :( I think I was more upset,though, than he was. But he didn't want me to take his picture while we were there. It was a good learning experience for him, and we will be better prepared for next year.
This was probably the best county fair, yet. There were tons of hands-on exhibits, and lots of really interesting demonstrations. We enjoyed ourselves for close to 5 hours!
Sam did everything (we began to lovingly refer to him as "our little hillbilly") ~
watching a fishing demonstration
riding the tractors, again
milking a "cow"
with the piglets in the petting zoo
on the big "john deere"
Mary had her first cream puff ~
3 comments:
Dogstar sez:
Nobody would paint a John Deere RED!
Looks like a Farmall tractor.
No FFA at the ol homeschool?
That's why I put 'John Deere' in quotes...kind of like saying "kleenex" for all tissues and "scotch tape" for all clear tape...
Farms? We don't need no stinking farms! Our food comes from the grocery store...
We're going to the county fair in OH that I grew up attending and exhibiting at--my pony, rabbits, our dog, cooking and sewing projects, and my brother's Jersey cows. It's one of the really old-fashioned ones--a slice of Americana!
It looks like you guys had a great time. So glad the Lego creation came together!
;)
Jeanne
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