Alyn visits

O.K. I have lost most of my motivation to post to my blog. Is anybody reading this anyway? Last month Danny's aunt Alyn came to visit us in Normal. Alyn is our third (and first!) visitor in Normal. I can't help but notice that we had more visitors when we were living in sunny California...
The kids were delighted to see Alyn. Everyone had many delicious meals, and the kids had someone to play Clue with!
The kids really loved that they got to sleep in sleeping bags on the couch. Argos was also very happy--he would sleep with the kids every night, but we don't let him into their room.

Other weekend highlights included the McLean County fair. Last year we missed the Banana Derby, where monkeys jockeys race dogs. This year we checked the fair schedule to make sure that we caught it. Truly bizarre. All animals involved seemed happy to do their thing and get their treats.

The races are free to watch, but the dude with all the pets makes his cash by letting people take pictures with one of the monkeys. Sam was entranced, and decided to spend his allowance to get a picture with the monkey. (This is not the picture--there is a better one that I haven't gotten around to scanning). Sam was so proud of his picture that he carried it around with him for a week, showing it to anyone who would look. (You can actually see it propped up next to Sam sleeping in the picture above.)

The monkey guy also lets people give the monkey a quarter for luck. The monkey will run over, grab your quarter and put it in a can. Joseph had many esoteric questions for the monkey guy about how giving a monkey a quarter could result in good luck, and the three of us had a good chat about the nature of luck and the role of monkeys.