We Made It!

Our family has made it through another year of the State Fair and another soccer season!

Is it possible to enjoy and be stressed by the same thing at the same time?  That's exactly how I feel about both the Fair and soccer!

I love the kids' soccer team.... I told you in the post about our soccer party just what I think about the coach and the teammates.  And it even helped that last year our practices and home field were 45 minutes away and this year we moved field locations and now they are only 7 minutes away!  I have enjoyed dropping the kids at practice, coming home and getting a LOT of stuff done, and then picking them up over 2 hours later.  I seem to get so much done at home when they are at practice, probably because I know I only have so much time to get it all accomplished.  Matthew will miss getting to play soccer several times a week, but thankfully the team is going to put together an indoor team and continue to play once a week through the winter.  But now we will have full days at home to get school and housework done and maybe even have time to have some fun!

Now on to the Fair.  The Fall is a hard time of year for Rich.  Not only does he continue to work at least 50 hours a week on shift, but in the Fall he adds in working 6 NCSU football games and several off duty days at the Fair.  This year, he was able to work six 12 hour shifts at the Fair.  Add that to two 12 hour shift days at work and he worked 96 hours in 10 days!  To top it all off, his 2 days at work were 6 am-6pm, meaning he had to wake up at 4:30am!  Thankfully, this year the schedule was more manageable than in years past and he actually had 2 days off (only because he had comp time to use up.....or else you could've added 24 more work hours in that time frame!).  

We did surprise the kids with a trip to the Fair the afternoon of the opening day.  We had free tickets, didn't ride and rides, and shared some food so that we could go and not spend too much money.  Of course, we spent more money than you should spend on food in one afternoon!  But it was fun to spend an afternoon with the family before a busy 10 days was upon us.

The kids, enjoying the State Fair, 2001