Eternal Flame

It's funny how you can go several weeks with very little excitement, and then all of the sudden you have a million things going on.  Since we returned from the cruise, I feel like we have been going non-stop.  Now that our washing machine is fixed, I also feel like we are doing laundry non-stop.

The 14th of October was Granny's birthday.  The entire family spent the weekend at the MCM Elegante together.  For those of you not familiar with my mom's family, here are the basics.  My mom is one of four girls.  I am one of ten grandkids.  Ethan is one of seventeen great grandchildren.  By the time you add spouses into the mix, it brings our total to well over forty people.  I know that's not the largest family in the world, but with seventeen kids running around it was plenty.  Granny bought all of the little ones matching Halloween pajamas with their names on them.  Ethan has already worn his a couple of times since then.  Granny also made each of the ten grandchildren a quilt.  These are serious birthday favors.  It seems that Granny did most of the gift giving on her birthday, but we did get her something in return.  The grandkids pitched in to buy Granny her own iPad--just what every hip 84 year old needs.  You can laugh now, but she seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit before we ever left the hotel.  She has already figured out how to read her email, check Facebook, and play Words With Friends.  Do you really need it to do anything else?  It was a fun weekend all around, and it is always good to see the family.  I regret that I actually got very few pictures of the whole thing.  Hopefully someone got some good ones.  We did have a professional take pictures of the group, as well as some of the individual families.  I will post those if and when I am able to get my hands on them.

This past weekend, we decided to make a quick trip to the State Fair.  If I were to write a book about things you shouldn't do with a two year old who hasn't had a nap, this would probably fill a whole chapter.  I'm not going to say I didn't have fun, but it sure seemed like a lot more work than usual.  Fortunately, the weather was agreeable.  It took us about fifteen minutes to find something fried to eat.  We started with Fried Buffalo Chicken in a Flapjack and some Deep Fried Queso.  Both of these things were excellent, and probably our favorites from the trip.  I attempted to try fried Frito Pie, only to be told that they were out.  Really?  Buy some more Fritos.  We aren't in the middle of nowhere.  Let me run across the street and just get some for you.  Then you can fry them.  Everyone's happy.  I'm just sayin'.  That seems like a poor way to run your junk food stand.  Over the course of the afternoon, we also ate fried biscuits and gravy, fried pepperoni pizza, fried pineapple upside down cake, and fried Autumn pumpkin pie.  I didn't care for the pizza, but everything else was pretty good.  We also got a barbecue wrap with some fries, and I had a bratwurst for a late night snack.  They seriously ought to hand out Nexium and Lipitor when you walk through the gate.

We did manage to do a few things that didn't involve food.  We endured the Amazing Dobermans, which weren't that amazing.  We wandered through all of the craft booths with people selling all kinds of things that so far I have managed to live without.  We did get Ethan a wooden puzzle of his name.  We walked through the Auto Show, which is always one of my favorite parts.  Once it was dark, we watched the parade.  Ethan really enjoyed it, and probably would have even more had some jackass with a camera not come and stood right in front of him.  Dude, you are too old for parades.  Move over and let the little kids have their fun.  We capped off the evening with a concert on the main stage by The Bangles.  Susanna Hoffs is 52 years old, but she still looks and sounds as good as she did when I was 9.  They played all of the songs that everyone knows, as well as a few that nobody seemed to know.  I thought they were pretty good, and if Ethan hadn't slept through most of it, he would have liked it as well.  He was awake for the encore of Walk Like an Egyptian.  I made the mistake of calling this his first concert.  Tiffany corrected me and said that when he was just a few weeks old we saw local band The Penny Jar.  Now that I think about it, he has seen them at least twice.  My bad.

Bonus Trivia:  The Bangles' hit Manic Monday was actually written by Prince under the pseudonym Christopher.