Well, our past weekend was quite eventful. Fremont, Nebraska (a town about 7 miles to our west) was having their annual John C. Fremont Days. It's an event that I look forward to every year. Mostly for the crafts and black market goods that I can purchase very cheaply. This year I had read in the paper that there was going to be a checkers tournament and an attempt at the Guinness Book of World Records during the Fremont Days. This only sealed the deal of our attendance. The weekend started off Friday evening with a hot air balloon glow. It was really neat. We could have climbed into a couple of the baskets for photo ops, but the kids weren't too keen on the idea of having that enormous flame roaring over their heads. We admired from a distance.
First off I must explain that Myles is a checkers prodigy. He's only ten, but if you are searching for Bobby Fisher to play a game of chess, you will soon be searching for Myles Lacy to play a game of checkers. He is virtually unbeatable within our family and has beaten his friends and teachers as well. So, we decided he was definately entering this tournament. We were excited and certain that a huge jackpot of winnings was coming our way.
Well, upon arriving for the sign up we learned that there weren't very many people interested in playing checkers and that our heaping pile of winnings would only consist of a 5 dollar bill. After about an hour of heated checkers competition, we also learned that our leader had no idea how to eliminate players or separate the winners bracket from the losers bracket. In the end, Myles came in fourth place. I tried to console him, but the loss of the $5 and the certainty of his opponents cheating (they were) were too much. He was angry. So I offered the kid a $5 consolation prize and his mood lifted.
(Savannah worked on a giant jigsaw puzzle during the checkers competition.)We followed our morning of checkers with an afternoon of shopping at the craft fair and playing games at the kids fair (I hate those things. They never end well.)and eating lunch. Then the sun came out. The temperature had been nice all day, but once that sun made it's appearance the heat went up and our enthusiasm went down. We sat under a tree for some momentary relief while we decided what to do next. The 4 block walk to downtown and our car didn't sound appealing, but we'd run out of options. Then, the universe presented us with a tram. For free! So we hopped aboard and eagerly rode our way downtown to the first tram stop. We could see our car and were all smiles. But, the tram didn't stop. It kept on going. And going. And going. After driving us all the way across town at the break-neck speed of 4 mph and then returning us to our original location (4 blocks from our car) an hour later, we decided our day was over. We would return tomorrow for my attempt to get into the Guinness Book of World Records and achieve the fame and recognition that has always eluded me.
Ok, the Guinness attempt was for the most people running in high heels. I thought this was funny and had to join in. Realistically, this wasn't going to be my chance at fame, but if I could get into the Guinness Book of World Records, my kids would think I was awesome (at least for an hour or so). Unfortunately, we were short about 180 people. Apparantly there have been a lot of high heel races of late, because the organizer was being informed of the ever increasing number of runners necessary to beat the record each day. We offered to all run backwards to get a new record, but Guinness wasn't interested. And we ran anyway. And I didn't fall down. That should be a record.
We stayed after the run for the parade and the kids had a good time. Then they ate all of their parade candy and enjoyed a crazy sugar rush. Oh, what a weekend!
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