country fair

We spent saturday at our local country fair. It was an awesome day. There were no rides, no candy floss and no midway. There was a little parade led by a bagpipe band and followed by several community children on their decorated bicycles. All the kids got ribbons. Eliza one first prize for her fairy theme and tristan came second overall (toby and parker didn't enter.) Tristan and toby both made posters to advertise the fair that were displayed in local shops over the past few weeks. They both won huge ribbons for that as well.

The rest of the fair consisted of local booths pleading for the preservation of our little country village, the volunteer firefighters and a few local wares. Then there was the main attraction - all the competitions; everything from largest zuchini to largest dog and all the 4H animals and crafts in between.

I love where i live. Despite the long, wet winter and the lack of amenities there isn't another place i would rather be.

Three years ago, when i was pregnant out to here with parker, shane and i decided on a whim to drive up here from victoria to look at an open house we saw in a private homesellers paper. Our home in victoria was one we neither loved nor hated. It was close to town and suited us fine. We just never felt a sense of home or community no matter how hard we tried. The housing market in victoria was on a major upswing and we knew that our home was worth, at least, $100,000 more than we had purchased it for two years prior.

The first house we looked at up here in the country was okay, surprising in how much we could get for our dollar, but not good enough to sacrifice the city. Our interest was perked though so we drove around a little till we found another open house. From the moment we drove into our driveway we both knew that we had found our home.

It took awhile and a turned down offer till we took a risk and made a "no subjects" offer on this house. We put our old house on the market five days before parker was born and had three offers within a couple of days. I signed the papers while still in the hospital. We bought this house and acreage for far less than we sold our other one for. We left the city behind when parker was six weeks old.

In three weeks he will be three years old.