Bear Hunt

We very often have to go on a bear hunt at the house (Jamie and Jeremiah Bridges - I blame you!).

Tonight I decided we had had quite enough Peppa Pig and Despicable Me so I turned off the TV's.  After Darby stopped pouting, she joined in on Dalton doing his forward rolls (look for us at the Toronto Olympics 2028 - Dalton, not Darby).  That got old quickly, so she organized a bear hunt.

It started innocently enough with a request for a flashlight.  That escalated to her needing a bag for their "pets" - "no, a bigger bag!" Mommy complied and the pets were put in a bag (these are stuffed pets, we are not abusing Stella at this point).

Then she decided they needed hats.  I pointed them to their respective hat racks.  Darby briefly wore a fedora, but then decided she needed a bag for the hats as well:

D1: Mommy, I need a bag for our hats... No, a big bag.
M: You only have one hat, why does it have to be a big bag?
D1: Because that's how we roll Mommy.
M: I can't argue with that.

To be fair, we did end up with many hats in the bag.

D1: Dalton, we need to take all the pets...No Dalton! Not the elephant!
M: Do you need a suitcase?
D1: Yes!! Good guess Mommy!

After the suitcase was investigated and then abandoned, her majesty ended up with a handful of totebags and Dalton's rolling backpack - Woof.  After Dalton made the mistake of trying to pack "pets" in Woof, he was corrected:

D1: No! They don't go in there, the books go in there!
D1: We don't need that book - that's a bedtime story - we need morning stories!
D2: This one?
D1: No, that's too big...We need more...No, that's enough...We need toys... Mom! We need more bags! Lots of bags.
M: Get Oink
D1: Oinks not a bag, Oink's a suitcase.


D1 (with a tote bag): Mom, it's entangled - can you do it? (she said entangled!)

M: Can't we put the books in just 2 bags?  Three bags of books seems excessive for a bear hunt (did I just say that??)

M: Time for bed!
D2: Why?
M: Because it's bedtime
D2: Why?
M: Because we spent a lot of time packing for the bear hunt.  We might have to wait til tomorrow to actually go on it.
D1: No! Then we might miss the bear!

 

After an initial explanation that I couldn't repeat if I tried:

 

Welcome to the Texas State Fair

As Darby likes to tell everyone - she is from the "Great State of Texas".  As a native Texan (and a Dallasite in particular) it is pretty much mandatory to do 2 things every year - take a picture in the Bluebonnets (check) and attend the Texas State Fair (check).

We hit the Fair this past Sunday.  It was the last day, but the weather was perfect - sunny and not hot. Pretty much the unicorn of weather in Texas.  We were joined this year by Miss Stephanie and Miss Casey.  Miss Stephanie is a long time veteran of taking my children to the Fair - there is a special place in Heaven for those that fall into that category.  Sadly, we were missing Miss Tracy this year.  Something about living in Alaska now - blah, blah, blah, excuses...

A couple of days before the Fair Darby asked me if there was a ferris wheel there.  I told her yes, and she said she wanted to ride on it.  Then, as we were driving to the fair we could see the giant Texas Star (2nd biggest in North America) from the highway.  She asked if that was the ferris wheel.  I told her yes, and she said she wanted to ride on it.  Once we got into the fair she became OBSESSED with riding the ferris wheel.  It quickly became clear that we were going to need to do that right away for our own sanity.

We did make a quick detour - luckily Darby concurred - for a Fletcher's Corney Dog.  Both kids gave it 2 thumbs up.  That would be 2 thumbs completely covered in ketchup.


After Corney Dogs we hit the ferris wheel.  As we were getting on Miss Stephanie almost stuck her foot in it and asked Darby if she was afraid.  Luckily, Darby looked at her like she was crazy. I was a bit concerned we were going to get on and start going up and one or both of the kids was going to freak, but I needn't have given it a second thought.  They both LOVED it. They were laughing and looking over the side the whole time.  Darby even told us she "loved heights".


Afterwards we took the obligatory Big Tex picture.  The kids were completely disinterested in him.  Apparently he needs to take up an extreme sport if he wants to be interesting to my children.  Darby was far more interested in the flowers surrounding him.  They were purple.

This one scares me a little...

After Big Tex we hit the building that I have a bizarre obsession with.  It has the butter scuplture (it was running mustangs this year), arts and crafts, photographs and, my favorite, the wall of jams, jellies. and pickles.  The wall was significantly smaller this year which I feel is an indicator of the decline of society.  I feel it's important to note here that my obsession with this building gets me made fun of every year.  I'm ok with that.  I'm willing to own it.  Apparently though, my children are going to have to learn to own it as well - Dalton in particular - because they LOVED it.  Not so much the jams/jellies (which was admittedly disappointing to me), but the arts and crafts. If I had a dollar for every time Dalton shouted "Look Mommy, look!", I could afford to send him to college. He would run from one display to the next shouting "ooh, ooh, ooh!" and flapping his hands. Mommy was so proud.


Once we were able to tear them away, we decided to take a break on the grass by the small music stage.  When we got there the Kildares were playing.  Darby was in heaven.  She began doing her own interpretive dance. Unfortunately they didn't play for long.  We were able to drown her sorrows in funnel cake though.



At that point it was well past nap time, so we decided to make a quick pass through the petting zoo.  Obviously that was popular.  Dalton was very excited about the giraffe.  Darby enjoyed the pigs (no big surprise considering her favorite shows are Olivia and Peppa Pig).


In keeping with the theme, pig hats were on the agenda for that evening.

Our final pictures are of the pumpkins we painted on Saturday.  I really think Dalton has a bit of an artistic eye.  Of course, they told me they wanted to take pictures with the pumpkins, but it was like pulling teeth to get them to actually sit there and do it.  I should have known.