State Fair Part 1: What We Did

Neither of us had ever been to a state fair. In fact, here's all I've ever heard of them: 1. When I was roommates with Ashley, she could only afford to go home once that year, so she chose to stay in Utah at CHRISTMAS so she could go home to see the state fair. I thought she was nuts. (No offense, Ashley!) 2. I knew there was an old musical called State Fair. That's it.

However, everyone out here has been talking about it non-stop, so Mike and I decided to try something new. We headed down to Des Moines yesterday to see what all the fuss was about!

Parking was CRAZY, but the carnival atmosphere was very fun. Here's a few of the things we did.

We went browsing through the tents filled with all sorts of crazy things to buy. My favorites were some disappearing ink and these two hats. (Look closely at the tops of our heads!)

We rode the Skyglider, which is this thing that lifts you in the air and takes you slowly over the park. It was fun, except for the time that we stopped right over a dad changing his little girl's diaper!

We went on the Old Mill ride. It was basically just a boat ride in the dark, so I couldn't get pictures inside of it, but here's the old mill and us in the boat just as it started.

We rode the gravitron. (Yeah, remember that old thing that spins you around so fast that you can't lift yourself or your arm or head off the wall?) We were both kind of dizzy after that!

We went to a cooking show. They were selling cookware. Very EXPENSIVE cookware, I might add, which meant that (of course) we wanted to buy some. But we didn't. The show was still fun, and the sample food was still very good.

And of course, we went to see the animals. That wasn't my favorite part (a little too stinky for my tastes), but you have to do that at the State Fair!

General Musings

Sorry I haven't written much lately. We don't get any channels on TV, and Mike's computer isn't working right now, so he's pretty much taken over my computer at all times so he can get his Olympic fix.

A few things to share:

Here's the latest news on my classroom. We've had some big changes in the district this summer. Our 2 elementary schools were previously each K-4, but are switching to have one school be pre-K, K, and 1st and the other be 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Basically, that meant that everyone at both elementary schools had to move classrooms this summer. They promised to call us when our room is ready. At the beginning of August, when I still hadn't been called, I started calling in. I found out that they were re-tiling my floor, and they said my room should be ready in a few days. A few days later, I called again and they said it would be another week. A week later I call back, and now they are telling me that it won't be ready until the end of next week. I start teacher meetings on Thursday! I have NO IDEA how I'm going to get the entire room ready for the open house a week from Monday when they won't let me in until next weekend! Aaaaaugh!!! I'll keep you posted!

I have been worried about some things going on at my job with Sylvan. Several employees have started telling me about some things that they think other employees are doing wrong. It gets really complicated because I don't ever want to say bad things about other people. However, some of the things they are saying are true and shouldn't be happening. I try to suggest that they tell the other person and not me, but neither one will. Any suggestions for how to handle that tactfully?

Last of all, update with my callings. Choir is officially on a break until school starts. It was getting too hard to try and rehearse around everyone's vacation schedules. Young Women has also been sparsely attended for the same reason, but the girls I have are gold. One of my Beehives is doing a great job with her Personal Progress and is already doing her 10 hour project for Faith! I had one Laurel move out (we miss her!), so I'm praying for some more girls to move in or become active! I love these girls!

Well, that's all for now. I'll have an exciting post next Monday - we're doing something we've never done before! Until then...

Tubing Adventures

My friend (and YW counselor) Natalie invited me to go tubing with her the other day. I hadn't been in a while, so I was excited to go. The crew consisted of Natalie, her sons Bryce (8) and Gage (5), Natalie's sister Stephanie, Stephanie's sons Connor (6th or 7th grade) and Tyler (freshman in HS), and me. (Mike would have come, but it was during the day and he had to work.) Sorry no pictures - I didn't want my camera to get wet.

Around noon, we drove down to Boone together and went to this very friendly place that loaned out tubes. We decided to haul them ourselves since we had 2 pickup trucks and it was a lot cheaper. However, the route they showed us was going to take about 4 hours to float. We thought that was a little long for a 5-year-old, so we decided to get off a little earlier than they showed us. We decided to park one of the trucks at a sooner point on the map so that we could get out a little faster and be able to drive back up to the truck at the start.

Unfortunately, there was construction all around the area that we tried to park in! We drove around for about 2 hours trying to find a way to park at the beginning and end of our shorter route! That's a long time for little kids to be patient, but they were great!

We finally found somewhere to park, and we got out to look and make sure we would be able to get out from that sandbar. It looked good, so we left one truck there and drove around to the top of the route. By this time, it was 2:30! We still had to find the top of the route, park, tie our tubes together, and get in!

We FINALLY got in the river around 3:00. The water was dirty but very warm - much different from the rivers in Utah. It was wide, slow, and lazy; the sun was overcast but the air was moist and warm. Basically, a perfect day to go tubing! We had a blast talking, laughing, floating, and swimming down the river.

When we finally got to "our" sandbar, we all had to jump out and wade in. During this process, we all got covered in sand. Poor Connor even lost one of his shoes in a sandbar! We wandered around looking for shells and having fun. Bryce and Gage were particularly fun to watch - they would get so excited every time they found a clam shell. They even found 3 live clams! The hunt for shells went on for about 45 minutes before we finally realized that we were on the wrong sandbar!

Luckily, we hadn't passed ours. All we had to do was hop back in our tubes and float for another 5 minutes to get to the right one. Poor Connor then had to hop back to the truck with one shoe missing!

At this point, it was already about 5:30. We still had to drive back to the top to get our other truck, drive back to the rental place to return the tubes, drive back to Farnhamville to Natalie's house, and I still had to drive back to Fort Dodge from there. I didn't get home until 9:30 at night! Definitely not how we planned it to go, but sure a lot of fun nonetheless!

Choir Music?

I am the ward choir director. I just decided today to have the choir take the rest of August off until school starts again - it's too hard trying to rehearse when people are in and out of town. However, I wanted to use the time off to find the music we will be singing at Christmas so I don't have to scramble in a few months. Here's the vital information:

I have about 7 men that are dedicated and come weekly (or at least fairly regularly). I have one or two on each part (bass and tenor) that are strong music readers, and the other 2 or 3 on each male part can follow if they hear someone singing it well.

I had 4 strong altos, but 2 have dropped out due to rides or illness. That leaves me with only 2 strong altos, who both happen to be the only other pianists in the ward besides myself. Since I have to direct, that means one or the other of my altos always has to play the piano. That leaves me with just 1 alto.

I have 2 sopranos that come regularly, but they can't read music and can't follow a part unless they hear it many times. I have 2 or 3 other sopranos that will come sporadically, but they aren't there often enough to know the music and/or help the struggling sopranos.

So, to summarize: my choir is too small for a traditional SATB. The women (I know, what a shock!) are my weak link. However, we could do a song for STB, or even a SAT or SAB song (but put the tenors on the alto part and combine all the women). Any children's songs or duets would also work.

My question for you readers: Does anyone know of any great Christmas songs that are fairly easy but still good? Two or three parts would be ideal, but if it has four, we'll manage. What are your favorites? What do you have fond memories of? (Yes, we have access to the LDS hymnbook and the Choirbook.) Help me figure out what to sing!

Mini Golf

Yesterday was such a perfect day that Mike and I decided to go mini golfing. Fort Dodge is not the most stellar town, so we only have one mini golf course, and it's fairly basic. In fact, we were joking that we should design our own course and make a killing! But, it's not what you do, it's who you do it with. I'm so glad to have my sweetie back in town - it was fun being with him even though he did beat me by 10 points! I even got a free game on the ball return hole! We'll have to come back to use it soon!

My Triathlon

Those of you who know me very well probably saw the title of this post and went, "What?! Michelle doesn't do sports!" You're very right - normally I don't.

However, I've been riding my bike a lot this summer. I wanted to save some gas, and biking is a good workout. (Plus I just got a gorgeous new bike a few weeks ago, which makes biking even more fun!) I happened to mention this to girl I visit teach, and she ended up asking me if I wanted to join her for a team triathlon. She was the runner, her co-worker Ellen was the swimmer, and they were looking for a biker. I had some big reservations (namely telling her that I would make our team lose!), but she insisted that it was just to participate, not to win, so I ended up deciding to try something new!

This morning was the big day. I was very nervous (ask Mike - I think he was chuckling to himself in the car), but it was also neat to feel the spirit of the race. It was a very fun and exciting atmosphere. Here's a picture of our team at the opening ceremonies.

We were team 100, but they didn't have those nice bib numbers that you see on lots of athletes. Instead, we got labeled on our arms and legs in permanent marker! Here's some pictures of my lovely labels - thank goodness they washed off! (Can you imagine going to church with those on?!) Team number was on the outside of each arm and leg, and your age was on the back of your right leg. (Yes, I got some funny looks when Mike and I went out for breakfast afterwards!)

(Sorry the picture is sideways - I couldn't rotate it and it takes too long to download it again.)

Swimming was first, with biking in the middle and running last. They kept track of our times with a time chip that you wore around your ankle. It beeped every time you crossed the time mats: when the swimmers started, when they came onto shore, when they jogged 100 yards to the transition area where the bikes were, when the biker left the transition area, when the biker got back in, when the runner left, and when the runner crossed the finish line. Since we were a team, we had to pass the time chip off when it was the next person's turn.

These pictures show me leaving the transition area (you couldn't get on your bike until after you crossed the time mat) and coming around halfway through. I biked 20 k (12.4 miles), which was 2 laps around the lake. Mike and my teammates were waiting to cheer for me there (and take my picture).

Our swimmer was the last one out of the lake, so I was the last biker who got to start. That meant that I didn't see any other bikers during the race except the really fast ones who were coming around for their 2nd lap as I was doing my first. However, my favorite part was how supportive everyone was! All of the people watching, and nearly every single biker who passed me, cheered or waved. They would call out, "Go 100!" or "You can do it! Keep it up!" It was so neat to feel so supported and encouraged when I was doing something that was very challenging for me.

I'm sure you're all wondering how we did. Well, we all finished!!! We weren't even the slowest total (although we were near the end). As for me personally? Well, Mike and I went out to the race site last weekend so I could see it and do a practice ride, and I came in at 59:54 last week. My personal goal was to beat that time, and I did it! I came in at 52:33, averaging 14.2 mph. I knocked off almost 7 1/2 minutes off of my time!

(And I tell you what - Mike is salivating over the results page! He's saying things like, "I could totally beat that guy's time!" The competitive athlete in him will never die! I tried to get him to enter on his own, but he didn't think the had the right equipment and was worried about the swimming part. However, I think he didn't like just watching. I wouldn't be surprised if he did his own triathlon sometime!)

Did it leave me sore? ABSOLUTELY!!! Sitting down or standing up has been a major challenge all day. Was I tired afterwards? YES!!! Am I glad I did it? YES!!! Would I do it again? YOU BET!!! And I bet I'd even beat my own time! Who knows... maybe next year with Mike!

My Cards

Since Mom asked, and since I have made a ton of cards while Mike has been gone, I thought I'd put a few of my favorites on here.








Sort of a black, red, and white theme going, isn't there? I guess I must like those colors together! (It might also have something to do with the fact that I'm using some of my leftover cards that happen to already have black trim around the edge. I had to kind of get creative!) Any other card-making fans out there?



P.S. Mike comes back tonight! Yay!