Alright, it's time for a recap.

The week before last was my big week-long conference that I've been planning all year. I don't really want to talk about it. :) It went fine, but I'll be so glad when all the paperwork is over. I swear, red tape is the worst.

On to fun things that I've done. Friday I went to the Monroe County Fair, which was one of the smallest county fairs I've ever seen. They did, however, have funnel cake and elephant ears, the pros and cons of which had been the talk of the town all week amongst my friends. I've been looking forward to the funnel cake, and I got about two bites into it and was done. I don't know why they don't sell those things in bite-sized servings for the same price, they'd make a killing. Anyway, the elephant ears, which I don't think I've ever gotten because I always get funnel cake, tasted rather like warm, floppy cinnamon toast crunch.

We went to watch the demolition derby. So much fun. First, the crowd voted for favorite decorated car (mine was the Maroon Baboon car, which had a giant stuffed animal on the roof). Then, they went in heats, bashing each other up. The top three cars from each heat advanced to the final round. It was pretty cool, several engines caught on fire. Good stuff. The funniest thing was that Suz, one of the classiest dames I know, knows everything about demolition derbies. She's from a town in Idaho called Salmon, and there's only one big event all year and that's the derby. She's also quite the elephant ear connoisseur.

We left the derby early because the next morning, yesterday, we got up and went to Deam Wilderness for a hike out to the lake. Nine miles round trip, and I am beat. It was such a perfect summer day for a hike, though. The only regrettable thing is that I have never seen so many ticks in my life. I got five ticks off of me, four in my clothes and one already latched on to my leg. These were the big dog ticks, we don't have so many deer ticks out here so there wasn't a worry of Lyme Disease, but it's so gross! It took Chris and me three matches and some bourbon (we don't have rubbing alcohol) to get that sucker to let go of my leg. Moral of this story: wear a hat to go into the woods. Anyway, it was really fun. Poor Harper's not going to get any long walks for a while, though.