I never would have thought that I would prefer to have the stuffed animal.

The carnival.

Carnies. Fried food. Games where 3 ping pong balls will cost you your child's college savings. Or, the better deal, you can get 8 ping pong balls for the price of two children's college savings. Funny money. Stuffed animals. Because one house can never have enough stuffed animals in it.

Good times had by all, no doubt. Who doesn't love a carnival? We took the family last year and the boys had such a great time. They actually remembered the different attractions and games. Nathan won an orange stuffed dog last year which quickly became Lucy's stuffed dog. So his quest this year was to win another orange stuffed dog.

I swear these carnies are smarter than we give them credit for. In retrospect, I realized that they were using a tactic known in my field as Behavior Momentum, loosely defined as an intervention designed to create a momentum of compliance. Basically creating an environment in which one continues with the behavior of spending your children's college funds until you have made it all the way down the line of games without even thinking twice about it, no matter how painful the games or stuffed prizes may be. So here we are, starting at the beginning of the line of games, collecting another closetful of stuffed animals, and working our way down to the end. I catch up to the family at the last station to see the kids throwing balls into fish tanks, some tanks had different colored water inside and that color would determine your prize. Nathan got a ball in!!! Yay Nathan! We were all so excited... and then it happened. The carnie grabs a cup, bends down to a cooler, and begins to get the prize: a freakin' goldfish. My Dad and I look at each other with the same look of "uh-oh". We all look up at the name of the game (which, due to that damned efficient behavioral technique we hadn't done up to this point), and sure enough - it says "Win A Live Fish". Crabapples! Everyone in our party is claiming to not have seen this and I believe them.

Someone thinks of an "out", the weather. It was 105 that day and we still had plenty of carnival-ing to do. So we said - "oh, but it's so hot. It might not survive." Well I'll be damned if those damned carnies are not one step ahead of us, yet again. She hands us a "coupon" to come back at the end of our day and claim it. Nathan is delighted. We are defeated. So we go about our day doing the attractions, eating the food (I finally tried a deep fried Twinkie), and enjoying the mayhem. At the end we're getting ready to depart, thinking we may have a chance at leaving without our live addition to the family, but of course sweet Nathan hasn't forgotten. So we pick up the fish, who received his name immediately, and we bring him home.

He made it the first night. Yay! Maybe we can do this after all! We got food, put him in a nice tank, and flanked the outside of his tank with stuffed goldfish (which probably scared the bejoobies out of the poor guy now that I think about it). Nathan was beaming with pride that he won this little guy and couldn't wait to go to school on Monday and tell his classmates.

Monday, 6:45am: Me - in bed. Nathan - at my bedside "Mom, how do fish sleep? Cuz he's at the top of the bowl on his side and I can't wake him up."

Me - wishing we had been able to just have another stuffed animal instead.

It wasn't the ghetto, forcrissakes.

Katelyn making an important phone call

Climbing truck

Scott enjoying the Spray Dragon

SLUSHIE!!!

Nathan enjoying the Spray Dragon

Crazy bridge

Lion fountain

Ship captains

At the entrance. That poor statue.

We made a family trip to Pixie Woods in Stockton last weekend - one word: AWESOME. Funny thing though, we kept reading reviews about the facility that were submitted by random folks and we repeatedly read such statements like "after you make it through the ghetto" and "you may want to duck as you're driving to get to the entrance". Seriously? I was becoming a little anxious because it is Stockton, after all. I've driven to the Stockton Children's Museum (three words: EVEN MORE AWESOME) plenty of times and know what the area can be like, so I was mentally preparing to see a battleground. I should have snapped pictures so you can see for yourself but I'll try to put you at ease about making your own visit with my words. Ready?

NOT THE GHETTO.

And in case you may still be worried - still not the ghetto.

At least not any ghetto I've seen. I like to think that, given my work history, I have seen my share all over Sacramento and even into Vallejo. Sure the houses were older and could use a little paint. There were chain link fences around most of the homes. The windows had bars over them and looked similar to the housing projects in downtown Sacramento. Don't let it keep you away. The real ghetto to me is when you are driving down the street, no matter what time of day, and there are multiple random groups of people milling around, giving you a hard look when you drive by, and even the occasional pit-bull dog running loose along the street. There might even by a police car with one officer wedging himself between his open door and the car seat telling people to leave the area, only to have these hard-looking boys come closer to him from all angles while he's radio-ing in that he needs back-up. (That's a real story, btw. Let's just say instead of visiting that client I stayed in my car and went right back to the office and counted it as a non-billable "no-show".) That's what I used to see when I worked in the ghetto.

The neighborhood on the (tiny) stretch of road that will lead you to AWESOMENESS had a man, no doubt a father, washing his minivan. A little further down the (tiny) stretch of road was a woman watering her plants. Really people. Just because there's a little dirt, a lot of metal, and a house in need of a paint job here and there - do not call it the ghetto.

Don't be afraid to visit - our family absolutely loved it!

No matter what life is handing you...

Absolutely, hands down, without a doubt - a smile will get you through whatever you are facing. Even a fake one.

Excuse me, I must be in the wrong place.

So school's back in session and we're slowly getting into the groove of it all. At the beginning of each year they have a PTA "Picnic" which we didn't make it to last year for no real reason other than it was a Friday night and, well, we just didn't. After a few days of listening to the boys talk about it upon their return home from school, we decided we would give it a go this year after all - how can we not? They're in 1st grade now, they've got social obligations to keep - appearances to make. We looked over our food choices and noticed that they're asking $5 for a hot dog or hamburger and $10 for a meat sandwich. Um, Ok, so we'll eat at home and then go. Cool.

We arrive around 1/2 way into the shindig, to see almost no familiar faces. Yay us! "So, maybe there's something over there?" (We said that a lot that evening.) We started walking towards what seemed to be the main attraction: the DJ. Alright - this is picking up a little bit, some music, some kids dancing... it might be fun - you know, for kids. Until we realize that the music being played it something you would expect to hear at a 20-something pick up club. Thumpin', bumpin', grindin', shake your thang type music. (Do I sound super old yet?) But really - we're at a K-6 school function - where's We Are Family? Or how about YMCA? Nope, we had a song about going dizzy when you go down. Really? Where am I? And as I'm turning around to see if I accidentally got drunk before leaving the house and was coming out of a blackout - I see a student girl doing a pole dance routine on the tether ball pole. Seriously? With her mom and mom's friend right in front of her, laughing. Did I just see that right? I call my husband's attention, just in case I am drunk. In all the time it took to get his attention, give a casual nod in that direction, have him bear witness to it, and react as I did - she could have been told to stop by a responsible adult. Nope - it was still happening. I was rendered speechless, a very difficult thing to do, and began steering my family away from the "stage". Off to get them each a $3 ice cream. Yay us!

I'm thinking that we'll skip it again next year. At least next time we'll have a legitimate reason.

Today I put my fancy earrings on.

Some days I feel more glamorous than others. As a stay-at-home momma and a child care provider, those days seem few and far between, but they do still happen.

I know that by the end of the day, my clothes are typically marked up with who-knows-what-from-who-knows-who, my face is a little more shiny than it should be, my hair product that was carefully applied in the morning has given up some of it's claimed "Xxxxxtreme" hold, my eyeshadow has collected itself in my eyelid crease, and my lovely perfume has dissipated into the black hole of sweet smells.

But today, I put my fancy earrings on.

I feel pretty.