Photo Booth

On Tuesday we joined Ken, Becky, Rachel and Benny for a second evening at the fair. Rachel posted some great shots over at her blog. The animals had arrived the previous Sunday night, so we were able to go see the cows, goats, sheep and pigs. We rode more rides (including a coaster that should have been appropriate for the boys if it wasn't manned by a sadistic Carney) and fed the boys pizza. I showed off my pictures and we listened as Matchbox 20 took the stage. Then we went to the photo booths.

Every year since our first year as a married couple, Chad and I have gone to the fair and gotten our pictures taken in a little booth. The first year we had just closed on our house and were preparing to move to the North County. We went with Carrie and Jimmy, who had discovered only a couple days before our wedding that they were expecting. I was still adjusting my my new name (Good morning, this is Mandy Cut--Dawson). We ate corn dogs, rode the Ferris wheel and held hands. Getting a picture in a booth wasn't a tradition, it was romantic.

The second year we went with Adam and Danielle. We'd been living in our house for almost a year and were reveling in our status as an "old married couple". We'd survived the first year of marriage (including the Newlywed 20) and were starting to talk about children as something in our near future.

The third year was the same summer as my miscarriage. We were so heartbroken. I felt as though I would never be able to have children. (Melodramatic much?) Little did I know that when this picture was taken, I was already a week pregnant. Our life was about to change forever.

The fourth year we went, we were no longer a couple, but a family. Joseph had been born the previous April and we were smack dab in the middle of baby love. I look at this picture and have to laugh at his little chubby cheeks. He was such a little guy! We went with Adam and Danielle again. It was strange to experience the fair with a baby in tow. I put him in his Peanut Shell and carted him around the fair, showing him off to polite strangers, secure in the knowledge that I'd given birth to the most precious of all babies in the history of the world.

The fifth year we went, we went again with Adam and Danielle. Joseph was fifteen months and still a little chubs. He was walking, babbling and so different from the baby I'd toted around the year before. We took him to see the animals and look at the lights on the rides. We talked about how much fun it was going to be to put him on those rides when he got older.

Then there was this year. Our sixth year going to the fair and sitting in the booth. Joseph ate pizza, rode on the rides and ran from animal to animal as excited as, well, as excited as a kid at a fair. Looking at the pictures from previous years, I can't believe how much he's grown. He's no longer a baby, but a little boy. I look at the pictures over the years and can't help but think how much has changed for Chad and I from that first fair trip. When we took that first trip we were secure in the euphoric bubble of the newly in love. We'd hadn't yet experienced the pain, the heartbreak, the joy, the triumphs that would come to us over the next few years. I look at all the pictures and can't help but wonder what I'll see when I look back several years from now.