October News

October has been a pretty great month for us here in TX.  The kids and I headed out on one of the final days of the Texas State Fair to see what all the fuss was about. 

We saw a great acrobatic show, a kind of silly one with Extreme Pogo stick athletes (didn’t even know there was such a sport), and another one featuring cowboys and a demonstration of how they round up steer.  That one had an award-winning lasso expert…he put on a pretty amazing show.

We tried some different foods, but nothing extreme.  Of course, we got to see the statue of Big Tex overlooking the fair.  Overall, we were pretty disappointed, though.  It definitely wasn’t anything impressive.  I thought everything was bigger in Texas!  Actually, the size of the fair was pretty large…but it seems the main focus is the food.  They had some pretty bizarre offerings, I must say.  It seems like there were miles of food stands all lined up.  The trouble is that there was far more food than there was exhibits or shows.  To me, that’s just not the main focus of a state fair.  I wanted to see giant, award-winning pumpkins and adorable animals.  I saw some horses and some hogs and lots of cattle, but that was about it.  Now I can’t attest to the rides, as we did not visit the Midway.  But that’s not what draws me to the fair anyway.

Perhaps we’re just spoiled by the Virginia State Fair.  It’s a lot to live up to.  I loved the fancy chickens, the adorable bunnies, the baby chicks hatching under brooders, and the adorable ducklings with their cute antics of sliding down the little slides into the water.  I miss the giant pumpkins, the tractors on display, and the tons of amazing shows and exhibits.  It was easy to make a mini-vacation out of the Virginia State Fair.  But honestly, I’m not sure I’d ever go back to the Texas State Fair, and that’s saying a lot considering that I had 3 free tickets!  It really wasn’t even worth the $15 parking I had to pay.

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The next piece of news for October is that my oldest son, my firstborn, finally landed his first gainful employment!  He’s been putting in applications in recent weeks, but since he’s never worked before, he wasn’t getting any calls for interviews.  Then out-of-the-blue, his phone rang with a request for an interview for Sonic.  He went the same day, and the hired him on the spot as a carhop!  He started the very next day by attending orientation, and then he started training on the job on Monday.  It really only took a day for him to learn the ropes, and then he pretty much completed his first week on his own.  Hooray for Hayden!

                            

Heading out for his first day                    Returning home in uniform

He mostly enjoyed it until today when he got *that* customer who ate half her food and then sent it back three times because it wasn’t quite right or wasn’t hot enough, or whatever.  Basically, it sounded like a professional “I’m gonna complain until I get my food for free” type of customer.  You know the one.  It kind of bummed Hayden out a bit, because she ended up complaining about him to the manager, saying that he argued with her about whether or not the food was hot (he actually just informed her that he watched them re-make the food in front of him, fresh out of the fryer!).  I told him not to take it personally…there’s a bad apple in every bunch.  His till ended up short, too…lesson learned about forgetting to sign out after each order.  I suspect there’s an overage on someone else’s till as a result.  Anyway, he’ll get the hang of it!  He likes having a routine and the ability to earn some money for himself. 

Go, Hayden!

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Halloween is just two days away.  The kids just had a two-week break from homeschooling…our old fall vacation time, only we didn’t go on vacation this time!  Instead, we just enjoyed the time off and took care of errands and such while we had the extra time. 

Haylee just turned 13, so she is technically too old to trick-or-treat, but since this is our first Halloween in Texas, we figured Holden would be more comfortable if she was going door-to-door with him, so we told her she could do it this one time.  She was very excited!  LOL.  I picked up a Mad Hatter costume for her today at the thrift store.  It’s so cute, and it has an adorable little mini-hat with it.  Holden hasn’t decided if he’s going to wear his king costume, his minions blanket sleeper that has a decorative hood, or his Darth Vader blanket sleeper with the cape and face mask again.

Haylee and I opened up the Halloween decorations and did a little decorating out front this evening.  We put a cling door cover on that looks really cool, some hanging ghosts, a pumpkin garland, a trick or treat welcome mat, some clings in the window, some signs, and I’ll put my trick-or-treat flag out tomorrow in place of my fall one.  I’ll try to add a photo tomorrow in the daylight.  I made up candy treat bags on Friday.  The neighbors say there aren’t many trick-or-treaters or even homes giving out candy around here, so I just made 25 goody bags for the kids who do come by.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!