Making Traditions

Anyone that knows me, knows that I'm a woman of routine and traditions. I've been even more so since I married Ryan. Ryan starts a new job in Orem tomorrow, so we were blessed with a 4 day weekend, instead of just a 3 day weekend. We spent Saturday at a family reunion, Sunday with family for Emma's baby blessing, Monday painting the new condo (um, yeah, that didn't go so well...story to come later), and today we drove to Blackfoot, Idaho for the East Idaho Fair. Despite being completely exhausted, I was super excited to go. This is the 2nd year for me, and just another year for Ryan to add to his list of the 100 times he's already been. I have literally been going off of about 4 hours of sleep for the past week. WAY too many early mornings for my liking lately (not due to baby, due to events and outings). We were worried that today's early morning was going to create a domino effect for a terrible, cranky baby day. Boy were we wrong! Lilly slept the WHOLE 3 hour drive to the fair (even went an hour past feeding and didn't even care), was happy and smiley while we walked around, and was a princess for the drive home. I told her that if I could buy her a Happy Meal for being so good, I would have. Anyway, this year at the fair seemed so much more relaxing than last year. Last year it was hot, WAY crowded, and I remember being so exhausted the whole time....turns out I was pregnant last year and didn't know it yet. Yep, that explains a lot. This year, it was nice and cool, breezy, very dead where fairs are concerned, and we had a happy baby to tote around. I always find picking food for lunch to be such a challenge. I want to try everything! I told Ryan that we should have bought one of everything to share. Everything looked so good! We ended up being boring and just got corn dogs and fries. We did treat ourselves to a caramel apple and a tiger's ear with honey butter. YUM!

I created a tradition last year. I like buying souvenirs that are unique to an experience. What better than to get a caricature done while at a fair? I'd always been curious as to how I would be drawn. It turned out really well, and the artist even captured Ryan's expressive eyebrows and large sideburns. When we decided to take Lilly with us this year, I thought it would be a fun tradition to get a caricature done of us each time we go, adding more kids, and watching us grow as a family. We were even able to find the same artist that drew us last time, and she remarked that she remembered Ryan. Ha! Who wouldn't remember such a handsome man?! I was thrilled that it turned out so well! We now have them both framed, and I can't wait to watch more frames fill the wall.