Chase County Fair

Last week (Monday 8/11-Sunday 8/17) our family experienced what is apparently the high point of the year in Imperial...the Chase County Fair! If you have never lived in a small town or somewhere where the fair is a big deal, I'll try to describe it for you. All church activities (weekly Bible studies, music practices, etc.) at Zion were cancelled for the week, other than the Sunday service and the Wednesday service at the nursing home. Every business in town had abbreviated hours so that staff could attend the fair. Basically, it's all anyone talked about or did for the entire week!

Here are some of the highlights from our multiple trips there:

*Walking through the animal pen buildings with Reagan in her stroller - she was especially infatuated with the "piggies"

*Wasting many quarters playing bingo at the Lion's Club booth and beating the odds by winning nothing

*Thursday afternoon's several hour long (only Matt went to this) talent show that featured several excellent local artists/groups, as well as an obnoxious 5th grade girl who played the accordian and told jokes

*Seeing people from our church in line for the Alice Cooper concert (hmmm....)

*Funnel cakes

Nothing can ever beat the mutton busting contest we witnessed! 4-8 year old girls and boys were decked out in cowboy boots, Wranglers, and belt buckles. It was quite the show for us suburban Wisconsinites! Please make sure to watch the brief video Matt posted below. (For those who already watched the video, we apologize for the delay in explanation!)

On Saturday morning, Matt participated in the fair's annual 5K run. He was a bit worried because he was not in his ideal running shape, but he had the chance to run the route a couple times the week before. The race actually passed by our house, so Reagan and I were out there in our pajamas watching for Matt and the high school boy from Zion who he ran with. I was able to snap the above picture. Unfortunately, the official timing system malfunctioned when Matt and his running partner finished, but they estimated that they were somewhere around 22 or 23 minutes. Matt was happy as his goal was to be under 25 minutes. He told me that they finished toward the back of the competitive pack, but ahead of the recreational runners.

A couple hours after the run we were downtown sitting in lawn chairs watching the parade with Pastor, his wife and daughter, and some of their extended family. Reagan got very good at collecting the candy thrown onto the street - she even swiped some pieces out from under others' fingers once or twice! The theme of the parade was "Then and Now," so we saw lots of older and newer corvettes and older and newer tractors/combines. One float had a small airplane sitting in corn stalks on a truck bed. I don't remember what group's float it was, but there was a large, hickish man in overalls walking out in front of it shooting a gun into the air, making everyone jump at the BOOM. We decided that this was just about the only place where that would fly! The cutest moment of the parade was when a 7 or 8 year old girl who was sitting in the back of a corvette convertible threw a teddy bear right to Reagan, who instanty sat on my lap and cuddled with it for several minutes.

All in all, it was a fun week that helped us get to know the people and the community!