Folwerville Fair

Unfortunately, I didn't take as many pictures as I would've liked but I'll post what I have. Lexi didn't do as good as we had hoped. She didn't even place in the showmanship category. They only give ribbons to the top eight places and she didn't make it to that. She did get a participation ribbon though. She didn't place last year either, so we were hoping this year she would improve. She didn't, but we learned some things that may help her to do better next year.

Her goat was also judged for the market goat category. She placed third in this, but right behind her cousin, Tasha, who wasn't so nice about it. Being second, her goat is given the title "Reserve Champion" and with that usually will get more money at the auction. This was the case and so she made more money on her goat, even though Lexi did more work than Tasha did. It was disappointing to Lexi and frustrating to us. We will probably take Lexi to the Genesee county fair next year. That way she won't have the competition with her cousins again. That was hard. Her crafts did pretty well. She received 2 A's, 2 B's and 1 C ribbon. Because Merrit and Makayla are only considered Clover Buds and not full-blown 4H-ers they only received "good job" stickers on all the crafts they entered. But it was fun for them and a good experience.

It was a really long week. We stayed at Charlie's parents' house in their camper. We had good weather most of the time. Thursday and Friday were pretty hot and humid though. Charlie's sister, Sabrina, was there the whole week too. She was in charge of her kids, which is the first whole week she's been in charge of them for about a year. She was an interesting thing to have to be around. I'm not so sure I want to do that again. It just made for a lot of drama and some tension that I'd prefer not to have to be around.

I'm glad to be home now. We are working this week to get the storage unit cleaned out and all that stuff put into the garage here at the house. It will save us some money. Charlie is there right now getting our first load. I just hope we can make it all fit here. We will hopefully be signing up for classes this week. I have to apply first though. I think I'm going to try UofM Flint. I'll have my major in finance which I'll be able to use in several different ways if I need to. If Charlie doesn't end up with a job before the beginning of September, I want to have student loans already set up, but you kind of have to be enrolled in school to get them. So that's another thing we will be working on this week. We still hope and pray that Charlie will end up with a job though. Although they aren't any prospects right now. I know the Lord will help provide for us in what ever way is best for our family.

So here are the pictures:

This is all the items.

This is Merrit's sculpture. I'm not sure what it is suppose to be. Sorry the picture is kind of fuzzy.

This is Merrit's woodworking project. He had to make something from a kit.

This is Makayla's sculpture. It is a king cobra snake.

This is Makayla's crochet entry. She was trying to make a wash clothe but didn't have the patience and she couldn't get it to come out square. So she left it round and called it a coaster. We had a little flower vase that she put a flower in and put it on top of her coaster.

This is Merrit's entry for the sports category. He did a poster about baseball (his favortie sport).

This is Merrit's tye-dye shirt and Lexi's photo entry.

This is Makayla's and Lexi's tye-dye shirts. Lexi got an "A" on her shirt.

This is Lexi's photo entry up close. She had to take a picture of five different subjects. She chose to do a person (herself in the mirror); flowers (some plants that were growing inside Grandma Hicks' cylow); still life (the bowl of fruit); animal (Sadie, Grandma Hicks' dog); building (Grandma Hicks' barn). She only got a "B" on her photos because the judge didn't like little bidly things about almost all her pictures, such as the camera is seen in the picture of herself, the sprinkler was seen in the barn picture, the judge wanted to see the dog's face and she thought the picture of the flowers looked dreary. I thought Lexi was pretty creative with the shots she took. I can't say that I agreed with the judge's thoughts.

This is Lexi's buymanship entry and her cookies entry. The buymanship category is one that is suppose to teach kids thrift. They are to buy a whole outfit for under $25. Then they have to fill out a packet about their outfit stating things like what the total price is, why they bought it, and why they think it's a good deal. She spent only $3.65 on her outfit that included the shirt, shorts, necklace, and shoes. She only got a "C" because she was suppose to have a picture of herself wearing the outfit included with her packet, but we forgot to print it off our camera. She took the camera with her to the judge, but it wasn't good enough. So the judge gave her a "C" for not completing the packet. We thought that was a bit harsh considering how well the rest of the project went, but that's way it goes sometimes I guess. The cookies she made were Peanut Butter chocolate chip cookies. She got an "A" on them. She didn't read the instructions before she started making them and she put all the ingredients together before mixing. It made it really hard to mix the dough and we hoped she got everything properly mixed. Last year, she only got a "B" on her cookie's because the judge just happened to bite into a cookie and got a whole chunk of baking soda in her bite. So we were glad she didn't have a repeat from last year.

This is Lexi showing for the showmanship category. She was judged on how her animal looked, how she presented it and how she looked and answered the judge's quesitons. Charlie says he was never good at this. We'll just have to have Lexi practice more for next year.

This is Merrit showing a goat. He wasn't old enough to show one with the 4H-ers, but he got to participate in their mentoring program. This is where an older 4H-er teaches him how to take care, and show a goat. The girl with the blond hair walking next to him is his mentor. Her name is Jamie. He did great for his first time and really enjoyed it.

This is Lexi after the auction posing with her goat. And the video clip is her auctioning her goat.