A Good Start

Last week was a pretty awful week, with nothing at all worth posting. Hopefully we can just forget it all and move on with this week, especially since we're taking a previously unscheduled but entirely necessary week-long break. (My planned school year schedule would have us taking a week off later in October, but since it all works out in the end, I decided we could be - gulp - flexible.) Actually - and fortunately - I think I'm the only one who needs to forget anything and recover. "Mom's melting down and losing her sanity? Hey, at least we skipped spelling -again - and got to watch some extra TV!" No one seems to be traumatized, in short, and I'm glad for that, anyway.



Today, though, we had a truly good day. We woke up early and went to the SC State fairgrounds for the fair's rabbit show (the actual fair begins in a couple weeks). We went last a couple years ago, and the kids did well showing their rabbits, but there was hardly any competition. This year, however, the competition was much stiffer, and there were several quality rabbits - we weren't sure how we would fare this year. But our rabbits (the kids showed them) did wonderfully, taking several firsts. One of our rabbits, Patches, made an exceptional showing, catching the judges' eyes immediately, and sweeping all her categories to capture Best of Breed (she's a Holland Lop). At the end of the show she was in the Best of Show judging with all the other Best of Breeds, and there were some gorgeous rabbits in that competition. Our rabbitry has never taken a Best of Show, but we were pleasantly surprised to realize that Patches was a frontrunner. We held our breaths and waited as the judges deliberated, after they had stated that there were four very good rabbbits to choose from. And we danced and high-fived when the head judge, with glowing praise, announced that the Holland was the winner. Aimee got the official awards, but our whole family felt proud, because Patches is a third-generation product of our own line of rabbits.