After the rain

Denslow's Mother Goose, by Anonymous

It rained off and on all morning.  The clouds rumbled a lot!

 Although the rain gauge only said we had an inch, the ground has become saturated from rains all week so there was a little flooding.

 
I decided to take a walk around the lake to check it out.  Al was napping when I left.

 This was a picture taken a couple of days ago.  See the heron searching for lunch?

  And this was this afternoon.  The creek (or "crick" as Al pronounces it) is up just a little, yes?

The great egret, or Edna, as we lovingly call her, was posed by the lake

     but as I came closer, she took off.  Such beauty!

 These mushrooms are huge - like the size of my hand!

 The water is up to the dock pad.

As I rounded the path, I noticed the path was covered with water.

Good thing I'm wearing my Keens.  

 The great blue heron, or Willard, was just around the bend.  As I drew closer, he quietly inched further and further away from me and finally he flew off too.

  I have never taken a shot from this angle and noticed our willow tree really looks nice by the bridge!

 And the mystery bird - I think it is a reddish egret.

 Any other ideas?

He flew off across the lake to join Willard and Edna.

 The flowers are enjoying the rain, I think!

 It looks like the weathermen are saying no rain until the later part of next week.

The ground has had enough for awhile, I think.

State fair 2016

The first time I went to the State Fair was when I was 16.  Allen asked me after church one Sunday if I'd like to go with him.  I had never been and I was excited to be asked out by him!!  He was a hunko munko!  Still is!

 (Like the smock top?  They were all the rage and I sewed several of them!)

This year, Jill and I took the girls on dollar day.  When we got there, we took a picture of the spot we parked the car, just in case we forgot.

On Al's and my first date, we got totally lost at the end of the day. 

 They didn't have signs like this back then.  

A guy with a golf cart drove us around for a long time until we found the car.

It was still a FUN date!!

Joy and laughter are gifts from the Lord!

Jill and I had Dillons Plus Cards and got in free.  It was a dollar for the girls.  The older girls know their mom's phone # in case we got separated, but Claire doesn't know it yet so mommy wrote her phone # on her arm if she got lost.

The ticket lady suggested we take a picture of the girls so we could tell people the clothes they were wearing that day just in case we had to search.  Better to be prepared than sorry.

 Claire waving at the sheep.

 We enjoyed the baby ward.

 Al's Dad would have had a cow that we paid for a horsey ride, but we don't have a horse like our kids did at their Grandpa's.

  We went to the petting zoo.  You couldn't "pet" everything though.

 Not this porcupine at any rate!  I've never seen a live porcupine!

 How cute are these baby bison and camel?!

Next stop - the rides!!  We walked the strip to decide which rides to choose.  We didn't realize that all rides were only 1 token and at first we were telling the girls they could only choose maybe 3 rides each.  But when we learned it was only 1 token - well, there was much excitement!

And then we came to the LOVE ride!  The place Al gave me my first kiss - on the cheek.

The girls were all about exciting rides!

 Like being totally upside down!

 The more you could scream the better!

 Claire, Sophia and Jill went off to do some other things while Hannah and I continued on.  She got on this ride with some pretty crazy people who made their pod spin so fast it was incredible!!  I was a little worried that Hannah may have been scared.  But she wasn't!

 She loved this one!!

 Meanwhile, Claire and Sophia were having fun too!

 

We met up again.  Hannah and Sophia really liked the log ride at Branson so were excited there was one here too.

They got soaked!

We found a place for Claire to get some soaking fun too.

We took the skyline for fun.

Strollers weren't allowed on it so Jill said she would walk and meet us at the other side.

The girls kept waving to their mommy.

 
                                 

Sophie still had one token left and she chose to do this one ride.

Claire did NOT want to be done with the day.

"More rides!"

But it was a school night and Jill and I were POOPED!

Next year!