Fair Week, July 20-24

Aunt Betty said I needed to post some fair results, but I don't have pictures of everything. Maybe when the kids get up. The 4-H conference judging was Wednesday the 18th. Since it was Mallory's first year, I was allowed to sit in on that. She had taken a write up on what she had done to room and the judge was very impressed by what she had planned and coordinated. She received a blue and a "Considered for State" ribbon, even though it's only honorary for first year 4-Hers. Next year, she'll be old enough to take something to State Fair. Next she had her monkey bread. This judge was very fun. Mallory interacted with her a lot. I'm guessing a lot of it was the fact that it was so fresh in her mind. Everything else was done a while back that it was hard to remember what she had done! She received a blue ribbon on that, too. Next was her garden paver. We did that fairly recently, but it started out as a kit and judges don't like kits. It was to be a mosaic from little bits of glass, but Mallory had instead used the flat marbles she had collected from weddings. They were all very special weddings to her, but she never really made it clear that the design was hers, and not part of the kit. She did tell how she had planned to make two little hearts, but there wasn't room when she transferred the design, so she just made some lines to balance out the crosses. That did impress the judge. She got a blue ribbon on that, too. Finally, there was the kitty cat wall hanging she made me for Mother's Day. The judge was very impressed with that. The only problem was that Mother's Day was so very long ago and Mallory just couldn't remember when the tabs went in. I told her when we were writing up the commentary when the tabs would have had to have gone in, but she just didn't remember it that way. Then the judge could sense her confusion and told her when they would have had to have gone in, but she couldn't convince her either. She received a blue and a "Considered for State." It was a really amazing time.

Friday was open class. Mallory entered two plaster items she had painted and got blues on both. Morgan got a blue and a red on his, and Matthew got a blue and two reds. Matthew entered a monkey bread and Morgan a banana bread, and those both got blue. Doug and Abby were here and decided to do some baking, too. Doug made a coffee cake and Abby some cookies, and they both got blues. The boys entered their garden pavers they made at Maranatha and both of those got blue. Matthew entered the pillow he made me for Mother's Day and got purple!! My wedding cake got a purple, too, but you can find out more about that on my cake blog.

We also sneaked through Pa Rose's garden to enter some things for him because he never does, but we found out why! Nothing was quite ready. We entered some dill that got blue, carrots that got red, and green beans that got a participation. Later, Michael raided his fridge and came home with some good looking stuff. Grrr.... the fridge!! That's where the good stuff is!! Oh, well. Next year!!

On Saturday, Mallory made her cherry pie for the contest. It did not go well at first, and the helpers came over to see if they could help her figure it out. They kept looking at me even though I wasn't supposed to say anything, so I didn't. Then they tried to tell her to just add some water, which I thought was a huge mistake because we had tried something of the sort that week and it didn't work well. They were still looking at me so I just told her to start over. I thought it would be much easier and less stressful in the long run, even though it can take her three hours to bake a pie. She decided to do that, and I could just see the relief. She was much more focused and less nervous and it all went incredibly smoothly. And it only took an hour and a half!

Out of the 49 pies, I thought hers looked the best! They only tell you the first and second place winners, so we won't know how she did. We only know it was beautiful. Some of our friends bought it at the auction and said it was really good, too!