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Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Brownville Flea Market

So this picture is pretty much my new favorite thing, ever. 


Last weekend, my mom, sister, Carys, Emmeline, and I went to Brownville, Nebraska,* for a flea market. Ostensibly the world's largest, but a quick Google search shows me that at least a dozen other places are also claiming that title, so color me doubtful. Brownville's about an hour due south of Omaha.

*Semi-relevant sidenote: how incredible is it that a town of 132** has a website? I find that so incredibly awesome and humorous and I couldn't begin to tell you why.

** That's ONE HUNDRED THIRTY TWO. As in one less than 133. No commas in that number. That's a small-ass number. Although on the way in, you pass a town of 8. So could be smaller. Although I think the prairie dog population at our local zoo is larger than that. 

I'm really only filling this post in with words and pictures because I wanted to share that picture at the top. The GIF of my mom and Carys blowing dandelions with Emmeline looking on. BECAUSE IT'S WONDERFUL. And obviously I couldn't just post it by itself because god forbid I post without a bunch of supliferous words, right!?!?  The world would END.

We explored each of the vendors, enjoyed some frozen-fruit-lemonade (do you have this where you are?If not - make it! Just dump some frozen fruit into a glass of lemonade. SO GOOD!), some kettle corn, and some BBQ, and bought a few things (including a rusty trike for Carys that was $20 but talked down to $10 and ended up not being an antique, but just a really rusty trike from 2003, ANTIQUING FAIL). We also met my brother and his fiancee and looked at a possibly wedding venue for them for their 2016 wedding. 2016, yeah, I know. I can't even think about it because then I start thinking about how Emmeline will be 2.5 and Carys will be ALMOST FIVE and I die a little inside because time. And it passing and all that. But maybe I'll be hugely pregnant with kid three, huh, Chris? (NO NO NO he shouts in response.)

We tried to find two geocaches and went one for two - I suspect we found the base of one but the actual container was missing. (What, you don't know what a geocache is? You poor thing. It's like a fantastic treasure hunt ALL OVER THE WORLD. Look it up. You'll thank me. And also curse me when you're balls deep in poison ivy and insisting it's probably just Virginia creeper even though you KNOW Virginia creeper has five leaves and poison ivy has three leaves and whatever this is that you're standing in the thick of definitely has three leaves but you have to tell yourself it's harmless because you just KNOW that cache is here SOMEWHERE.)

I promise you Emmeline was there too but she was strapped to me most of the time, so no good pictures of her. I swear I took one of her sleeping in the stroller like a little starfish, but I can't find it. Emmeline, I love you just as much as Carys despite the lack of pictures, I swear. 

Sorry about the quality of these pictures. SOMEONE (cough Carys cough) dropped my phone and I haven't been getting great phone pictures since.

Carys climbing a tree after lunch at the sole bar in town, which is turned BBQ place just for the market. 

I'm sorry for sharing this. It will haunt your dreams. The shop owner caught me crying staring looking at it and said it was his good luck charm. "She" had a name but I can't remember what it was. Which is probably a good thing, since it will be harder to accidentally summon it to life in my dreams nightmares.

Buy your very own GIANT ASS CHAIR. And take it home....in your what exactly? Because ain't no way that thing is fitting in anything you drove to the flea market.

This kid, who looked like he was maybe 14 but probably was actually 20, was dressed in 30s clothing and doing silent vaudville-type acts. It was pretty fantastic, actually. I grabbed his business card just to look him up but can't find it now, which means I can't win the bet about his age. On the other hand, I can't LOSE it either, so we'll call it a win.

She insisted on carrying this giant bag of kettle corn around.

Stormy day out, but beautiful.

Carys was fascinated by this banged-up silo (silo? I should know this, I live in Nebraska, land of 1000 farms). We decided it was damaged in the big floods that came through a few years ago.

Like, I can't even begin to explain the bond Carys and her aunt Kimberly have.

On our short hike to find the second geocache. 


Her face doesn't show it, but she LOVES these pony rides. I give in, but I spend the whole time sad about these ponies strapped to a wheel all day. Also wishing I was little enough to ride them. Also wanting to take one home.

We closed out the day with ice cream. Cookies 'n cream and chocolate chip cookie dough for me, strawberry for her. 

She loves ice cream as much as I do. The silly face is thanks to Kimberly, who told her to make that face to ruin the picture.

See? Emmeline WAS there! My view on the way home - a view I'll never get sick of, despite being totally squashed.

5 comments:

  1. Very nice pictures as always. I wanted to ask if Carys is facing backwards in the last picture, how do you fit her legs in? are they each at a slight angle as well or is it a wide angle lens that distorts things. Also, is Emmeline in a removable car seat or a permanently installed one? PS. I got the same car seat for Emma as Carys has. Same colour too. Huh

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  2. @mrsh - I took some pics today I'll share with you. She is still rear-facing in a Britax Boulevard (I think it's a Boulevard). She usually either hangs her legs off of the side or does criss cross applesauce. She's never complained about being squished - I think since it's all she knows, it is just natural to her. Emmeline is in an infant bucket seat still, a Chicco Keyfit 30. The angle is just from the panorama; in real life the seats are sitting straight up.

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  3. Holy cow, I'm impressed that you fit between the two car seats!

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  4. How do you even get in the back of the car! Ha!
    Also, I love the goofy ice cream face, and the nearly tall as Carys popcorn

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