The OC Fair

Other than a few vague memories from childhood, I had never "experienced" the fair. At least not the way the Isley's experience the fair. Thankfully, my husband introduced me to an entirely new summer indulgence shortly after we were married, and I have never looked back! In Southern California, there are two big fairs from which to choose: the Orange County Fair and the Los Angeles County Fair. I prefer the latter (yes, even with the risk of a gang shooting), however, we occasionally partake in the former as a "warm-up" of sorts.

The OC Fair is everything you would imagine... and more. There are pigs, goats, carnies, rides, funnel cakes, music, women indigenous only to Orange County, and porta pottys all mixed up in one ferociously overpriced outdoor event not far from the beach.

Obviously, it was due time for Lacy to visit the fair!

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Randy and Lacy spent some time bonding over a funnel cake and eight dollars worth of "freshly squeezed" lemonade...

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Lacy discovered that the fair is NOTHING like Disneyland. At the fair, the workers don't care if you can't get your seat belt off or if you can't manage to get yourself off of the little "magic carpet" ride... they just want to make their eight bucks an hour and get on with it.

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Possibly against my better judgement, I allowed Lacy to ride this slide. All. By. Her. Self. As a child, Randy was hurt pretty badly on this same ride. He was none to pleased when her turned around to find Lacy climbing up the stairs alone except for the potato sack she would ride to the bottom. It is not often that Randy gets mad at me, but he was pretty irked. I spent the rest of the seven minutes at the bottom of the slide praying she would be okay. She was..

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Except for a small raspberry Lacy got on her arm when she used her elbow as a breaking mechanism towards the end of the ride.In the end, everything is always made better with batter-fried potatoes covered in salt and nacho cheese sauce.

Oh, and for those of you following Lacy's crazy comments, I have two memorable ones from last week:

Lacy: "So, let me get this straight... you love daddy."

Me: "Yes"

Lacy: "And daddy loves you."

Me: "Yes"

Lacy: "And everybody is okay with this?"

No lie, that is EXACTLY what she said. I am sure she saw it on a movie or TV show, but I just can't figure it out. The second thing she said was in the middle of dinner with my mother and sister-in-law after the fair last Friday night. But first let me give you a little back story... Lacy (yes, my THREE YEAR OLD), is learning her states & capitals, and her presidents. She is totally into it. While at Target the other day, she found flash cards with the presidents on them and we bought them for her. Now, every single day she stands in front of us with her pile of cards and asks, "who is this guy" to which we reply "Thomas Jefferson" (or whatever prez is on the card) and she usually repeats the name a few times then puts that card down and brings up the next. One of the cards she found particularly interesting was John F Kennedy. We explained that he had been assassinated (of course she wanted to know what the word meant... and by the way, now uses the term correctly!). So back to the dinner on Friday night... Lacy announced in the middle of dinner that, "John F Kennedy was shot in the frickin head with a frickin gun!" We all about fell over. To some extent, Lacy reminds me of Scout from the book To Kill A Mockingbird. She loves to use words (bad words too) purely for shock value. Yes, she is only THREE!!!

Finding the perfect house...

So we have decided that we simply can't afford the kind of house we want. We must wait. If we wait, they will come...down (the prices, that is!) So we went and looked at a house for rent today.

Actually, we more than looked. A financial transaction transpired. It looks like we are moving. (I hope... it's only a for-sure thing once we move in, right?)

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Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the house, but this is pretty close to what it looks like. I will keep you all up on the news as it happens.

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When asked what room she would like, Lacy pranced into the master bedroom and announced, "this is mine". Sheesh!

Tonight's Prayer

Lacy: "Dear Jesus, please make sure Grampy and Grammy have a good show this weekend, be with Grams and Aunt Larci, Aunt Becky, Uncle Kyle, Aunt Natalie. And help us find a house so we can paint it pink. If you don't we will fire you. Amen."

By the way... the bank took another offer on that house. poop! And church was a bummer. I'll blog about it later.

Livin' the Faith

I am convinced that Lacy is just one tambourine short of being a Pentecostal. It's pretty cute to watch, actually. While I, myself, fall into somewhat of a middle-of-the-road, slightly closeted Evangelical, her father tends towards the side-hugging, non-hand-raising Baptist. As a family we present a broad spectrum of the Christian faith. And it works for us.

Lacy has taken to seasoning her conversations with little gems such as, "I feel the Holy Spirit, amen!" and "In Jesus name, hallelujah". Mostly they are met with an eye roll from her father, and amusement from her mother.

This Sunday we are going to try (for the very first time) a local church. I am hopeful to make some new friends and allow Lacy the opportunity to grow up in a church the same way I did.

In another leap of faith, we are hoping to make an offer on a house nearby. I spent some time with a loan guy on the phone and he seemed positive about everything working out. We are still waiting for our pre-approval letter and then we can put in an offer on the house. The stress alone on this is killing me, but then I just remind myself, "we don't have to do anything!" and if it doesn't work out, it just doesn't work out, right? Right???

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There are so many things that will have to "fall in line" for this to work out, that I am convinced more than ever it will totally be God's timing if it all comes together.

Yes, she said it!

Lacy: "Are you guys my crazy little parents?"

Us: "yes, we are your parents"

Lacy: "Good. I don't want to be paying for nothing"

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A few days ago Lacy and I went to Trader Joe's for some groceries. As to be expected, Lacy scored a balloon. On the way home, Lacy's tiny balloon went out of the car window and as she pulled it back into the car, the string just couldn't hold on any longer and she lost her balloon. Instant melt down! Tears EVERYWHERE! I tried to convince her that she still had a lovely string to play with, but that didn't go over very well. So we stopped at the party store down the street and she picked out a giant balloon in the shape of the number three. Randy just gave me "the look" when I told him it was $10. Oh well, Lacy loves it, right?

Lunch with Tiffany

Lacy is going out to lunch today with daddy to meet some of his friends from school. Last Christmas, one of these friends gave Lacy a Tiffany & Co bracelet. So, our three-year-old, also known as the queen of the universe around here, is going out to lunch with her daddy and wearing a genuine Tiffany bracelet. Um, yeah.

FoodGawker

In my quest to find something better to eat for dinner, I have found some of the best food blogs. I had to share this little nugget... called Foodgawker. It's 11:30 at night and I am trying to figure out how soon I can get Lacy up to go shopping. Dinner is going to ROCK tonight.

Here are some of the pictures from the site. Check it out!

Happy 4th of July

Lacy has referred to today as July's Birthday for a week now. However, she can tell you that today we celebrate our independence from England. Ten points for my kid right?

We allowed Lacy to spend some time photographing the fireworks, as she has taken a very intense interest in all things having to do with the camera (since her aunt Becky taught her how). I posted a few pics Lacy took with her dad's help.

Lacy's "boyfriend" and his wife met us for the fireworks show, and Lacy went wild when he showed up. She was bouncing off the walls, doing everything she could to get his attention and wouldn't STOP TALKING! It was cute for about ten minutes, then she was just irritating. He was pretty cool with it though. I am curious to see if the first boy she ever brings home looks just like he does.

After we got home, Randy flipped on the TV and then walked out of the room for a minute. When he walked back into the room, he found Lacy totally engulfed in the movie Star Wars. He was so proud.

Some Days.

There are no words to express how much we all miss my father-in-law. Although most days I feel blessed simply because I spent nearly 10 years knowing him, some days the ache just bubbles up in the most unexpected ways.

Today, for instance, Lacy and I were on our way to Costco and I couldn't hold the grief in for another moment so I drove as quietly as possible with tears falling down my face. Really, I blame Bob Seger. Somewhere along our trip down the 10 freeway, Old Time Rock and Roll came on the radio, and I started singing. Lacy, as always, joined in as quickly as she could figure out the words. I glanced into the rear-view mirror to find my three year old sitting in her seat, eyes closed, moving her head up and down to the beat, toes tapping. Lacy doesn't just listen to music, I am convinced she feels it. And as I watched her experience Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band for her first time, I missed Big Randy. He would have loved this moment. I am convinced, if given the time here with us, he would have introduced Lacy to every band of the 60's and 70's. I regret that she won't have that time. Those two belonged together in more ways than just music.

Anybody who spent more than three minutes with Big Randy knew that he loved food. He loved everything about it, and then he loved to cover it in pepper and eat it. When I conjure up old memories of him, I remember him taking a bite of something he had never tried before, closing his big blue eyes, tilting his head full of wild hair back and savoring every bite. The first time I saw Lacy do this, I about fell over. She does the EXACT same thing. She is the only toddler I know that has eaten, and will continue to eat, things like squid, alligator, hummus, pepper, and various other random items. She is willing to try almost anything, and prefers it covered in pepper, just like her Gramps did. It is a terrible injustice that he did not get the chance to find new and unusual delicacies with his granddaughter.

Most of all, I would have loved to see Lacy and Gramps planting flowers in his front yard. Lacy loves flowers. According to Lacy, it is simply unacceptable to pass by a flower and not stop to admire it. Big Randy would work out in his yard every weekend wearing a big floppy hat. Lacy has one in the same style (except hers is bright purple). Sometimes when we drive over to the house, I look over to the round brick planters and just imagine the two of them wearing those hats, planting flowers. They would have loved every moment.

I am so mean...

But this is truly the funniest video I have seen in a long time. I love how the lady on the left just keeps laughing. Ten bucks says that she is the church youth group leader and nobody else would ride with the other girl. I can't imagine why.


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