First Harvests of Tomatoes are In!

Well, our bumper crop of tomatoes is coming in.  Brian's been picking them since last week.  We had enough to give some to all the neighbors, and friends, and sell to the restaurant for salad.   Brian took some time to photo them all! 

 

Nana and Papa Johnny helped with the photo shoot.

Ashtabula County Fair

It wouldn't be summertime without a least one trip to a county fair.  This year, we opted to visit my home-town county fair on the same weekend as the family reunion.  We got to the fairgrounds after dinner, just as the ol' demolition derby was ramping up.  An upside was that admission included ride-passes.  The downside was that the lines for the "grown-up" rides were outrageously long.  Our little Ciearra and Tamlin are finally big enough to ride some of the scarier rides, but don't have the patience to wait their turns.  Maybe next year :-)


This was Baby Elizabeth's first time out to the A-town county fair...I'm not sure if the tractor ride through the parking lot was a hit or a miss with her.  Our boys LOVE riding the wagon behind the tractor.

Since we got there late in the day, we opted to just wander down the main drag, eat, and hit rides.  Unfortunately, no time to check out animals during this visit...but I still love to come out and check out the sea of humanity.

And the food...oh the greasy food goodness.  We opted to get a bucket of fries to share around, and cold lemonade, and yummy fried elephant ears.

 And then we turned around and caught Tamlin doing this....

Yep, licking the ketchup out of the container.  Ah, yuck. Tam, that's not ice cream!

Needless to say, Tamlin got that container of ketchup for his fries all to himself.

The rides the littles did ride on were fun.  Even Baby Elizabeth got to ride on the merry-go round with us all.

Tamlin, Ciearra, and Jude rode a spinning barrel ride, but couldn't figure out how to make theirs spin.  We persuaded Rick to get on there with them so he could spin them around until they threw up (they didn't thankfully).

The giant slide was one of Jude's favorites

The roller coaster was also a big hit!  The kiddos rode it over and over.  

I've taught them well...check out those hands thrown way up in the air!

Baby Elizabeth fought going to sleep...Duh...there was way too much to see!

 We tried to ride the Ferris wheel and the round up, but were out of luck with both rides...it seems both broke down and were being fixed.  (I know, makes you wonder how safe it really is).
 

With the drop of darkness, we had time for just a few more stops on the way back out to the cars.
This may be the last year that Ciearra and Tamlin will be small enough to ride the caterpillar ride and the swans.   Jude will still love them for a couple more years.

 And, we let them hit that great dragon coaster one last time.

Good times...and great memories shared.