a lovely saturday/the calm before the storm

My Dad came up yesterday, and we decided to make the 30-min. drive to nearby St. James to check out their annual Grape and Fall Festival, which has apparently been going on since 1934. (The "Grape" refers to the existence of the award-winning St. James Winery, for whose delicious wines I can personally vouch.) They were having a street market, which was nice enough to wander through, although there was nothing there that was really "me." Mostly country stuff. Nick had a great time running around and petting all the dogs, though. We bought some kettle corn, but it was decidedly underwhelming. I was tempted by the funnel cakes, but decided to take the high road. :) They had free face-painting, and Nick got the cutest turquoise snake with red stripes painted on his cheek. He was very proud of it, and was careful not to rub his cheek all day!

The highlight of our morning was the parade, which lasted nearly an hour! We kept thinking that surely it was over, but we'd look down the street and see that it was still coming. I'll admit that I had a preconception that it would be a "dinky, small-town parade", and while it was somewhat dinky, it was also a lot of fun!! There were all manner of classic cars and tractors, horses, clowns, cheerleaders, several middle- and high-school marching bands, floats, etc. An old Army plane even flew over a couple of times. The best part, as far as Nick was concerned, was all the candy that was thrown to him. He thought it was great fun to get to collect the candy off of the street, and he ended up with quite a haul. It was a good ole small-town parade, in the best sense of the phrase. We declared that it shall have to become an annual tradition.

After the parade, we headed back towards home, stopping in nearby Rolla to have lunch and do a bit of shopping. I got Nick some jeans and cords at KMart for $3.50 each, and a faboo plaid flannel shirt for $4.80. Can't beat that! It was amazing - the rain that had been threatening all day held off for us during the street market, the parade, and all of our shopping, and didn't start until we were heading home from Rolla. How serendipitous is that? Poor Nick didn't get a nap, and he simply couldn't keep his eyelids up on the drive home. As soon as we arrived home, though, he was rarin' to go again. :)

When we got home, I made homemade chili (yum! - thanks, Angela!), and we ate it with green salads. A great dinner for a rainy, gloomy day. All-in-all, it was a really nice day, and we all had a good time.

Today has been very lazy, which is good, because you can see on the sidebar that I have a very busy week coming at me. The busiest week I've had in recent memory, really! I'm sort of looking forward to it, but I know it'll be crazy. I'm worried that it'll be harder for me to (make the effort to) fit in exercising, so I'll have to try really hard to be good. I always do pretty well when life is going along at a normal, manageable pace, but as soon as a busy, "out-of-the-ordinary" time comes up, exercising is the first thing to go. I hate that I'm not more disciplined! :(

Hope everyone had a great weekend and has a good upcoming week...