Today was our school fair. Now, this is not just any fair, but one of the biggest primary school fairs in Brisbane. Every year the school expects approximately 30 000 visitors to the site to partake in all the fun and games.
Now, the lead-up to the fair is something else.....selling raffle tickets, donating bottles for bottle stall, organising costumes for the class dances, cooking, volunteering time, and the necessary creating of a bear for Bear Cottage.
Every year for Bear Cottage, I race around a night or two before the due date, making a masterpiece out of an old teddy bear, a box and whatever else we can find. In the past, we've managed to make a pirate bear, Ned Kelly bear, Lley-Ted Hewitt, an Aussie bear and this year's entrant........Jamie Olive-Bear! Now our little Jamie didn't take home any prizes, but like his real-life counterpart, he was certainly one of the talking points of the bear-filled display room!
And like a good mum, I did volunteer two hours of my time to help take orders and hand out coffees to weary fair shoppers. In fact, I think I'll be dreaming about lattes and skinny cappucinos tonight!
The kids had a ball. They both did dances. Miss 7 shopped at the second hand toy stall, played games like Pick-A-Stick and Pass the Ball, scoured through the second hand books, ate and drank some of the many foods, got her hair painted and our course, lined up in the huge queues to go on the many, many rides. Master 11 did what most of the kids his age were doing.....hung around with each other to go on the many rides and fill their faces with as much junk food as they possibly could! *sigh* Thank goodness fair day is only once a year!
So as is typical of most families at the end of fair day, we have arrived home and immediately spread our treasures across the lounge room floor. Show bags filled with chips and lollies (great!) for the kids, second hand books for me and bottles of wine for Dear Husband who, I'm sure, spent about $25 just on this one stall but managed to pull in a bottle of whiskey and a few bottles of wine for his efforts! Hmmmmmm...think he'll be drinking them on his own for the next year or two as I rarely touch alcohol! Lol!
All in all, it's been a good day! I've included a few pictures of the sideshow alley, the Jamie Olive-Bear creation and the hair painting. Unfortunately, my camera is a little on the sick side and I am in the middle of deciding what my next one should be, so the pictures aren't as good as I had hoped. Regardless, we will all sleep well tonight after a fun fair day!
