A Solid Ten

We went to the fair yesterday with the children, Uncle Jonathan and Richard, one of my closest childhood friends, who was in town visiting while his mother had knee replacement surgery.   Richard hadn’t been to the fair since he was a child and mostly had memories of looking at antiques with his parents.

With that as his only memory of the fair we swore not to look at a single antique—and we met that challenge.   There was a side challenge of who could eat the most or at least most varied food and I think we all won on that front because we tried bites of everyone else’s choices.

The children were all about the rides and the cotton candy and we had both.   The rides were upgraded in simplicity this year with an armband that let you ride for the full day at one price.   We met and exceeded the price point easily with the low-traffic night and the exuberance of the children. I met and exceeded my calorie count for the day with the food, but that was my plan all along.

The children didn’t flag in energy and didn’t complain once.   My son did cartwheels and spins for at least a third of the time and my daughter found something we didn’t expect—a green inflatable monkey.   The very same monkey from two years ago at Myrtle Beach.  She held on to that monkey and talked to it and had it squeak to us and was so happy to have “Monkey Version 2.0” in her life.

We had fun with Richard and I hope he had a fun time with us.   It’s hard not to have a good time at the fair.   As I was driving home I heard my son rating Richard in the back of the car, saying he’d give him, “a solid seven”.   Richard got in on the game and for the remainder of the ride home people and things were given a “solid” something or other.   Richard had us all laughing.

This morning our children were not having this whole bit about Richard having to leave.  He is expected to return both soon and regularly with my children telling him they’d see him at Halloween, my daughter’s birthday, thanksgiving, my son’s birthday and Christmas.  

Pretty much no one wanted Richard to leave.   To our family, he’s a solid ten.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is getting better at reading and sight words.   We’re catching him up from being behind due to multiple things last year, several of them not his fault.   I think he’s enjoying being able to read a whole book.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter told us tonight, “back in the old days when I couldn’t climb, you had to walk through the doorways and it was boring. I wanted to make it so you could go under my tunnels“