Of Fairs and Bookwork

My apologies for my recent unexplained absence. I was unable to post a farewell note before my sisters and I left out of town last Tuesday to be with my dad's parents in Wisconsin at the Fond du Lac County Fair. We didn't return home until Monday evening, and these past several days have been quite taken up with unpacking, trying to recouperate :), and catching up on bookwork, mailings, and lots of emails for my movement.

You see, our family has some history in the FDL Fair. It's not just any common carnival. My parents met oh, so many years ago at no less a romantic occasion than this fair. They knew each other vaguely from many years of showing cattle (dairy for my dad, polled hereford beef by my mom)...my dad knew that there were "a bunch" of Huspen girls - my mom has 7 sisters - and always said he would like to date one. Their first "real" date was the demolition derby at the Fond du Lac County Fair in (let me check my history book)...1977. And next year they will celebrate their 25th Wedding Anniversary!

So our family always enjoys trekking back north to partake of some fair fun each year. Only, our kind of fun doesn't exactly consist of stuffing ourselves with cotton candy and getting sick on rides. My sisters and I have a tradition of helping our Grandma work at the Farm Bureau Women's Food Stand...and let me tell you, that's an experience I hope to tell my grandchildren about. :) How many 18-year-olds have the chance to flip dozens of pancakes, make 10 huge batches of scrambled eggs, take and fill orders, and run the cash register for hundreds of customers all in the same day? Considering that we were at the stand from 6:30am to 9:00pm each day, you can now understand why my list above of recent activites included "recouperating". There is nothing quite like that mixture of enjoying work yet being exhausted at the same time!