March 29, 2024

Column: Busy bees

As the month of August rolls around, I know that about every area of my life is going to become busier. From Old Settlers kicking off the month to fair time and then back to school and extra activities, our family calender gets filled up in a hurry.

An annual favorite, Old Settlers is such a fun time to spend with my family and friends. To start events, my girls participated in the kiddy parade Friday evening decked out in farm gear, including painted on freckles. They pulled a handmade barn full of farm animals created by my mom and waved to the crowd like pros. For their efforts, they received second place for theme.

The rest of the evening was spent riding carnival rides, eating tasty food and watching a little of a greased pig contest. We were up bright and early the next day for the running races. The girls must have eaten their Wheaties because they both placed in their race earning a few quarters as a prize.

Other Old Settlers special activities were up next with the coin toss and the frog jumping contest. They girls made out like bandits and we even won our first frog jumping contest with a speedy little guy who now gets to live in our crick.

That afternoon the girls performed their dance numbers and spent a little more time on the rides while their cousins were in town. We had a little bit of downtown for dinner before we went to the parade.

The parade didn’t disappoint with more than 40 minutes of floats, tractors and other attractions, not to mention the bucket for of candy we came home with. To cap off the evening, we were once again back at the rides, much to the girls’ delight. They went up and down the slide more times than I can count, rode of pirate ship several times and found their way through the maze.

To say Old Settlers is a good time had by all would be an understatement and I know the girls are already looking forward to next year.

Next up to bat for us is a visit to the Iowa State Fair. Our oldest is dancing for the first time on stage with her dance studio, so along with visiting the animals and getting our fill of fried food, we get a little extra entertainment from on of our favorite dancers.

A couple of weeks later it is time for school and dance to start. We have been prepared for school for a couple of weeks, having found the perfect backpacks at the Disney store while on vacation, Ariel for the oldest and Rapunzel for the youngest and we bought school supplies in July.

My favorite part of back to school, clothes shopping, is also moving along. I have picked up a few things here and there for the first few weeks of school, but since the majority of the year is spent during the cold weather months, I am trying to wait a little while before stocking up for the long haul.

To cap off activities, my youngest will celebrate her fifth birthday with a pool party with all of her friends. Planning has started and we picked a Hawaiian Luau theme with invitations to be sent out soon.

Sometimes it feels like we never have any downtime but having fun and experiencing activities with the kiddos in definitely worth it.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com