State Fair

Over the past month not only was Steven in school but he was also having to work 7 days a week on one of his projects at the fair grounds in Perry GA. Nightmare! The deadline for his project was when the state fair was due to start. I happened to be in class over my birthday - for the whole weekend - so when Steven finally had a little bit of down time and I was not in class we decided to celebrate by going down to the fair so that I could see his hard work and we could have fun at the same time. Here is his project which looked even more impressive in person and everyone we met said that they loved him - who wouldn't?! - and that he was awesome at his job!
The Horse Barn

The fair was a lot of fun, but such a culture shock for the English side of me! Case example number 1:

Fair food: aka a mound of grease with no nutrition whatsoever, and ridiculously expensive!

Case example number 2: Chair lift to help people get from one end of the fair to the other... why you can't just walk I have no idea. I blame the fact that Americans drive everywhere and so why not create a chair lift for a fair instead of helping people burn the calories that they may have just eaten from the aforementioned mound of grease? A chair lift without snow makes absolutely no sense to me but hey ho!
Case example number 3: a stand for Chinese food at a fair! Seriously, you can get Chinese food wherever you end up in this country! And yes, I was the weirdo taking a picture of the stand... I couldn't resist!
Case example number 4: the sheer size of the fair was HUMONGOUS like everything else American, not that I'm complaining though because it was a lot of fun in all its hugeness! Yes, I am ashamed to admit that we did ride the chair lift to take this picture!

And finally, case example number 5: the sheer heat of the day! We were burning up in amazing heat and sunshine in October - so strange!
We had an absolute blast on the rides and I screamed until I had no voice left. This was the first time I had ridden fair rides in the USA and they are AMAZING! We ended the evening with Josh Turner in concert (famous country singer for all you English peeps). I love country music and Steven is beginning to like it a little more since I now make him listen to it :) so he happily succumbed to the concert which turned out to be great!
Steel Magnolia were the opening act and they were great too:
Of course, we had to get a picture with the fair all lit up at night!
After the concert we went back to ride a few more rides and finally made it home at 1.30am at which point we decided that we are officially too old for such late nights, but it was well worth it and definitely a great belated birthday celebration!

Mum's Art Show

Back on September 17th a memorable event happened in the Gardner household... mum had her first ever art show opening! It is in the gallery at our church which has become really well known among artists in Atlanta and there were loads of people who came out to support her. Normally it is the job of mums to be proud of their kids but this time around I was the proud daughter. Mum's art looked amazing in the lights of the gallery and she did such a great job explaining her work to everyone. Steven and I went out for dinner before the show and then dad took us all out for dessert after - so nice to celebrate with mum on her special day!

Date night before the show!

Mum talking about her artwork



Sharon Gardner's artwork at its finest

Mum with her work



Display of what hiking means in the Gardner family - love this!

Mum, you are truly gifted and your artwork really shows the beauty of God's creation. I am honored and proud to call you my mum or Marmi ;) Love you!

We're Back!

There are two things that I have learned from this whole blog-posting business: 1) It is great fun stalking people and reading all their great news like what their sweet baby has done today, or what latest novelty people have tried in their new abode or who threw what temper tantrum where and 2) that blog writing is only fun when you have something to write about! No, we have not been computerless for the past 2 months, no we did not suddenly drop off the face of the earth, and YES we are in Grad School and yes it is consuming our life! Hence our lack of fun communication for so long. I didn't think it would be that entertaining for you all to see pictures of our paper covered apartment, or stacks of books everywhere so I just decided to go silent for a while.

Having said that though, here I am taking a wee breather from the craziness of school, which for the record will be officially be over in 6 months (YAY!!!) to update you all on life chez Simms. The problem with not keeping up with a blog is it then seems so overwhelming to catch up on, so here are a few photos to get me started from Grandmommy's birthday (yes it was a while ago and yes I am terrible, but like I said, it is all grad school's fault!)

Grandmommy blowing out her candles!

Debbie reading a sweet poem to Grandmommy that she wrote for her birthday. I thought we had more photos but the rest didn't come out that well. But here are a few of my new favorite past time on the farm!



We just wish we had more time to spend down there!