Labor Day - Little Labor and All Play!

I think I can describe our Labor Day weekend in two words...sun and dirt. On Friday afternoon, Cary, Carter and I headed for the National 16 Inch Softball Tournament in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Carter was a great little traveler and we made it there in 5 hours. Friday night was spent at the softball fields which were about 30 minutes from our hotel. Cary's team wasn't playing, but we wanted to watch his brothers' team play that night. The game actually started at 9:45 pm (45 minutes later than I had originally been told) and so we were crazy to ever think that Carter would stay up late enough for us to watch that game. My plan was to feed him and then lay him in his stroller to sleep until the game was over. Well Carter had other plans. I'll call an instance from this evening my "favorite moment of the week"....more to come on that later! Carter never did fall asleep at the ball park. Finally at 10:45, we left the fields and headed back to our hotel. The sleeping arrangements worked out really well...thanks to Kelly Coppola's ingenius idea of putting the pack-n-play in the bathroom. Carter fell right to sleep at the early hour of 11:15. What was interesting was figuring out how any of us (including our hotel roomie, Kyle) were going to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.



On Saturday morning, Carter and I went to a nearby outlet mall and did a little shopping. Then we spent the afternoon and evening at the ball park again. Cary's team won one game and lost two, so they were done playing by 5:00 that afternoon. We still stayed at the field though to cheer on his brothers' team who continued to win. Again, it was another late night for Carter. This time he was in bed by 10:15. Call us irresponsible, but Carter was happy as could be. He wasn't whining at all. In fact, he was laughing and kicking and playing and giving obnoxiously wet kisses.


Sunday morning, although Cary's team was done, we stayed to watch his brothers' team again. We thought they might win the entire tournament and so Cary really wanted to be there for that. Let's just say that I spent 9 hours in a row with Carter on a blanket under a tree. By 5:30 pm, I couldn't stand it any longer. I hadn't packed enough to stay another night, and quite frankly, I just wanted to get home. So, although Cary desperately wanted to stay, he also wanted a happy wife. After a slight detour in Wisconsin (yep....we drove north for about 20 minutes before we realized it...), we pulled into our driveway at 11:15 pm. Carter slept almost the whole way home and didn't wake up until 9:30 the next morning. All that softball really took it out of him!


I did the math and we spent over 18 hours at the ball park this weekend. It was HOT. Carter was sweaty and I forgot his hat so we had to stay in the shade. We sat under a tree past the outfield, we sat on a picnic table in the "beer tent," and we walked and walked in his stroller. Dirt and dust were everywhere. Anyone that knows me knows that I am not exactly an outdoor person, nor am I really into sports.....so I think that my husband owes me BIG! :)

Carter and Uncle Kyle

Playing with Daddy's Softball

As if we hadn't had enough dirt and sun, we decided to head to the Guthrie County Fair on Monday morning. Cary and I hadn't gone to the fair in years and we really wanted Carter to experience all that the county fair had to offer. We got to Guthrie in the late morning and Mom had lunch for us. Then Mom, Dad, Cary, Carter and I went to the fairgrounds for about an hour. The highlight was definitely Carter seeing all of the animals. At first, he was so timid and just clung to Cary. But after he saw us touching the animals, he tried to touch them too. I'd say that his favorite animals were the horses. He tugged on their manes and touched their noses. Pretty cute! Carter also saw goats, cows, chickens, rabbits, and pheasant. He had his first "tractor ride" with my dad. As Dad handed Carter back to Cary, Carter spit up in Cary's mouth and down his shirt. It was disgusting and we laughed so hard (at least I did).


At the fair, Cary watched the Mud Bogs and was highly impressed with the redneck activity! I'm not exactly sure what Mud Bogs are, but they were loud and seemed to catch both Dad and Cary's interest. Men. Carter rode on the carousel, had a few bites from our snow cone and left the fair sticky and sweaty. All in all, his first county fair was a success.

With Grandpa & Grandma Priestley

Petting a horse

With Grandpa on a tractor

Boy was I happy to give Carter a nice long bath last night. Although I know that little boys get dirty, four days worth of sweat and dirt was over the top for me!

And as for the favorite moment of the week:

On Friday night, I was really trying to get Carter to fall asleep in his stroller. I sat on the ground and held him under a blanket, Holly and Joe both walked and walked with him, and Bobbi tried to get him to sleep. No luck. I finally gave up and just laid him in his stroller, covered the entire thing with a blanket and walked up and down the sidewalk. Well pretty soon I noticed that the stroller was rocking side to side. Then I noticed the bug spray bottle bouncing on the top of the stroller. When I lifted the blanket to see what the little monkey was doing, I saw him standing up inside the stroller. It was just too darn cute! That naughty little boy!