Craft Fair and Chili Cook-Off

Wow it was a very busy weekend. Glenn and I are on the activities committee in our ward so we had a lot of planning and purchasing to do this past week to get ready for our ward Chili cook off on Saturday. I had never heard of a Chili Cook-Off until I moved to Texas but these folks take their Chili very, very seriously. I also did a lot of sewing to get ready for a craft fair that I was doing during the day on Saturday with some fun women in our ward. My sister-in-law Aubry and I have a large inventory but I always try to make some new things right before a fair. Here's our little table.Financially speaking, this fair was a bust. Not much traffic and very few of the shoppers were actually buying. But otherwise it was quite fun. We bought two booths and split the fees among the four of us. Amie makes cute home decor with her vinyl machine. Janelle makes blankets, burp cloths, and bibs and Kristina (who was on the phone when I took the picture, hence the goofy face) makes cute little hair bows. We had fun talking all day and then we traded for each other's stuff when we were ready to clean up. It was awesome. I scored an adorable sign for my house and some cute bows for my sweet nieces. Tate was with us for the last little bit, so Glenn could go set up for the cook off at the church, and was endlessly entertained by this deflated balloon that a lady at another booth gave him. Then we were off to the Chili cook off. There were somewhere around 20 chilies entered in the contest. We had the bishopric and their wives judge. We had chili, corn bread, salad, cobbler and ice cream. It looked good. I didn't get around to eating but it looked so good. Everyone was decked out in western wear. This is as close as we get I guess. As you can see by Tate's face, he was so worn out by the end of the day. Poor boy.Then we had all sorts of western themed activities planned. Stick horse races, bean bag toss, ping pong toss, and butter making (baby food jars with whipping cream that you shake until it gets thick) for the kiddos. And the big show, an arm wrestling competition for the guys. Well, it was supposed to be just for the guys. Some of the guys decided it would be fun to completely blow the competition out of proportion. They signed up their wives, friends, neighbors, etc. Even the Bishop and 2nd counselor armwrestled each other at one point. There was a circle of chairs around the arm wrestling table and a chalk board with the brackets written on it. There was an entire boys bracket, then a women's bracket, then a men's bracket as well. The arm wrestling totally took over the activity.

I was signed up for the women's competition. No, I did not sign myself up. And no, I did not want to do it and I think I made that pretty clear. Glenn tried to give me tips and I just kept telling him that I had no intention of participating. But how do you say no with the entire ward there and, let's be honest, very few of the other women actually wanted to participate themselves. My first match was with a girl much smaller than I and would have been a bit embarrassing to lose. It was a hard match but I won and moved on to the next round. The women's matches took SO long. I guess we're all pretty evenly matched. It was hard and long. This is me arm wrestling my relief society president and sweet friend. How many times can you say that arm wrestled with your relief society president? I kept winning. The final match was against my dear friend Janelle. We were shaking and sweating (did I mention the air conditioning was broken the whole night?) from our last matches and so we decided to wrestle left handed. I think that way neither of us would be embarrassed if we lost. We got the Elder's Quorum president to be the competition announcer and he declared our match, "The contest for the most afraid husband in the ward." Nice. I won. Yes, I am the women's arm wrestling champion of my ward. Not the title I'm most proud of, but there you have it.

Then Glenn got up in the men's bracket and beat every competitor. Easily. His matches were very fast and he wasn't even sore after. I'm still sore, three days later. He was amazing. So then Glenn and I won were forced to arm wrestle each other. Obviously he won. So funny that we both won the main event of the party we helped plan. Oh dear.

Oh yes, then I had to give a talk the next day at church. I'm was on the stand getting ready for my talk and the bishop got up at the beginning of the meeting to talk about the activity the night before. It really was a great activity. There was a great turn out and everyone seemed to have a good time. He said one thing he learned at the activity was that, "If you meet the Makechnies in a dark alley, run." Thanks for that Bishop.