"People who ain't from the south....

....Think BBQ means cookout, and there is something there wrong about"

We spent our Friday and Saturday at a BBQ competition and fund raiser. It was fun, and definitely interesting.  I got my first taste of a gypsy lifestyle, and, well, I smelled like BBQ smoke when I got home.

 I brought my camera along, because, frankly, I go nowhere without Camryn. Especially if it is over night. Think of it, someone might break into my house and steal her! So, Friday night, I was all over the place, snapping photos like the crazed photographer I am.  And I was extremely happy when one of the other contestants walked over to our cooking tent the next morning, asking, "Where is the photographer girl?". They needed me to take pictures of the teams, and, well, they saw me running everywhere with a semi-professional camera, and sought me out. I tell you, it was a small matter, but it felt wonderful. My heart was going, "FINALLY! acknowledgement!"

 Our cooking tent looked really cool.  It was just a normal festival canopy, but, thanks to having a brother who desires to be a electrician, ours was the most well (And safely) lit. And it looked positively magically gypsy.  Except it used electricity.

 I experienced with night Bokah Friday evening.  The Competition location was right next to a extremely active road, and there were cars going by all night long. And the drivers kept yelling at us. From cat calls, to compliments on the smell, to garblish we couldn't understand. 

 Evan sat up here for a good thirty minutes, claiming it to be his 'Hawkeye' perch.  Ok, Katniss boy.

 Friday night wasn't all that eventful, we set up our tents, unpacked our equipment, and ate a extremely late dinner (Who has ever tried to make a soup on a smoker? Me!). And then we had to work out where everyone was going to sleep. There wasn't room for a real camping tent, so the boys and Daddy (And a Firefighter friend, Mr. Mike) all stayed out in camp chairs and hammocks.  The little girls laid blankets out in our equipment trailer, and me, Mama and Shiloh bunkered down in our van. We laid all the seats down, and thus started a pretty long night.  Vehicle chairs were made for over night sleep. At least, not ours. I'm still bruised.  But, it was fun. I've never really gone to a sleep over, and this, between my Mom and I, was the closest thing. We talked and giggled for a bit before we finally started falling asleep while the other one was talking. Morning came early, and after 5AM, I just couldn't sleep anymore due to my side being so sore, I thought I was going to die.

 A rare moment of Shiloh actually playing nicely with her baby doll, instead of tormenting it.  I swear, this kid could be the female incarnation of Sid from Toy Story sometimes...

 When a bunch of Firefighters get together and compete for anything, its bound to be 1) Fun.  Most firefighters are so funny, and light hearted. I guess you have to be, if you run into burning buildings, and your job requires the possibly threat of death.  I'm proud to be a FireFighter's daughter. And 2) Very competitive. They might joke around, and congratulate each other, but you don't dance around a competition between Firefighter's.
And, in case you were wondering, the fund raiser was for a Children's burn camp called 'Camp Amigos'.  Its motto is, "Healing burns from the inside out". It is a really cool camp, it helps children who have been burned, and is run by firefighters.

 And of course, there were Firetrucks. Titus was clearly enthralled.

And a paramedic helicopter made a guest appearance.

 Titus waving to the 'copter as it came down.  He kept trying to unpuzzle how something so big could fly. No, really. I asked what he thought about it, and his reply, "I like it, I just don't un'erstand how it flys"

 And a horse. Wait, let me rephrase that, *clears throat*...
AND A HORSE.
Ok, much better. I went to pet him, and had to chide myself. As I approached him, my stomach got all in knots, I started getting strangely excited, and yet nervous, and realized, "I'm acting like a girl approaching her crush". Yep, that's me. The Horse girl. 
And horse lashes, aren't they beautiful?

 We had to do something much different this time, we had to use garnish. Now, that might seem to be a very small thing, but my family has had no practice on this, and it took all 5 of us (Me, Mama, Daddy, Evan, and Mr. Mike) to arrange these. But, it was a requirement to use garnish, and so we did. I don't think we did half bad. What do you guys think? ;)

 Titus did not like Sparky the Dalmatian, and this was the closest thing I could get him to do close to a hug. And when Sparky 'asked' for a high five, Titus told him, under no uncertain tone, "No". And laughed cruelly when Sparky 'cried'.  But, I might be scared of a huge dog too...And then again, I always loved Santa pictures....

 Singers. They also had dancers, but I wasn't sure if the dance Mom's would like if I snapped pictures of their daughters, most who were under 13.
I've heard some pretty terrible singers at festivals and cook offs, but these guys weren't half bad.

 Titus might have held Sparky in great disdain, but he loved the giant bear in a hat, AKA, Smokey bear. As soon as he saw him, he started yelling, "Mr. Bear-man! Mr. Bear-man!" in which I gave him the correct name of 'Mr. Bear-Man' and then Titus proceded to laugh and call his name while running towards him with his arms wide open. Ok then.
And he requested I get his picture with 'mokey, I had a hard time keeping Titus from following him all around the park.

And even shy Bitsy got a picture.
(I'm sorry, Smokey's face reminds me of the pedo-bear meme....).

And then, we won 1rst place in the pulled pork, 4th in Chicken, and 12th in ribs (I still don't know what to say, the ribs were GOOD).  And, me and my brothers won tshirts, mugs, a $20 gift card to Winn-dixie, and a mini shop vac in the raffle (We are somehow good at raffles) and then packed up, and went to our Grandparent's, where I photographed that lovely tom cat.

I had fun, it was busy, and we were all exhausted afterwards. And, it was pretty cool when in the middle of all these country songs, they started blasting PSI's Gangam Style. The desire to dance was pretty overpowering. Very overpowering. But, they must've decided that having a sudden, impulsive dancing crowd wasn't a good idea, and they stopped playing it. Dang. I was getting excited. XD

So, yeah.

And has anybody looked at the calander? October 28th people! The days till NaNoWriMo are quickly becoming shorter. I want to do a vlog before I start, but, lets see how that works. Also, I think I'm going to try to do weekly vlog updates during November, but lets see how that works out, hmm?

So how was your Weekends, guys?

Oh, and in case you were wondering what I was quoting in the Title, and first line of this post, Here ya be:

Ok. I'm done. Goodnight.

The girl who rambles,
The girl who sings songs that hold no symbolism to her life,
The girl who takes pictures of every thing that crosses her path,
Ashley.