1 down, 2 to go...

We spent 11 days at the Ionia Free Fair which ended on Saturday night. I'd say it was a success. We camped on the fairgrounds in a motorhome we borrowed from a friend with our three kids and our wonderful friend who is our babysitter/nanny...and really just like part of our family. Things went pretty smoothly. I guess it was a bad fair, from what we hear from the other vendors, as far as the money goes, this year...but since it was our first, we had nothing to compare it to and felt like we did great! We all got along well, ok...I had a few mood swings and the kids weren't always angels...but that's nothing unusual. We had a great time with the octopus show. Jasmin loved working too, so between the three of us, none of us felt like we were working or with the kids all the time. It wasn't anything like what I imagined.
On Saturday, we closed down sometime after midnight. The kids stayed up at the show with us while we tore down till around 1AM...until there were too many meltdowns!...and then Jaz took them back to the van and they got in their seats, watched a movie and fell asleep. When we got back to the camper with the Octopus truck, it was like 3:00am and Jaz had it all packed up ready to go! She is so awesome. So we went and dumped the holding tanks on the camper and were on our way. We arrived home around 5 and went right to bed. Then next morning the kids woke up around 11 and we took Jasmin home so she could sleep in her own bed. We basically just layed around all day, Sam went to work at the church in the evening. Then next day he went back to work and I worked on laundry, cleaning out the camper, and cleaning up the house and picking up after the kids who played with every toy they owned that day...must be they missed them.
So next week we are scheduled to be at the Jackson County Fair in our hometown. But today, Sam got a call from a friend we met in Ionia who said that there is a 50 foot gap in the midway at the Ohio State Fair (which opens tomorrow). They had some no shows and they were looking for someone to fill it. Sam talked to the guy with the carnival and after seeing a pic of the show that Sam emailed him, he wanted the Giant Octopus. It should be a good fair. There is a potential of making a lot more money at Ohio than Jackson...but it means we have to miss Jackson, which I am kind of disappointed about, because I was looking forward to all our friends finally being able to see what we have been working on for so long. So anyway, Sam packed up everything, got a hotel room, walking distance from the fairgrounds and hired Jasmin's brother to help him out. I suppose we will probably get down there on the weekend and maybe stay a few days if it works out. We'll see. I can't wait to find out if we have a good location and how we do the first day!
The other thing that I have going on, is while we were at Ionia, I got a couple of jobs painting food trailers. I made over 400 bucks in one day. Plus I have more lined up in a couple of weeks in Marshall. I am going to go up to the fairgrounds on Saturday and see if I can get any painting jobs lined up in Jackson...then we'll decide what to do about going down to Columbus after that. I spent around 150 in paint and brushes. Most of what I am doing is touch ups and stuff like shadowing letters. I am not doing lettering because I am not good enough for that yet...but I hope to improve...I have a friend who offered to show me some lettering techniques. People like the handpainted stuff on their trailers & signs and I really love doing it. Hopefully I can get some more jobs and make some extra $ before the summer is up. We go back to work on the 30th I think...which is so late! But it's cause of the new law in Michigan that public schools have to start after Labor day now.