My family is extremely creative in helping me with my 'homework'. Yesterday Cindy, my DIL, dressed us all up and son Craig took Cindy, his sister Robin and me off to the Gold Canyon AZ Renaissance Faire so I could practice my noisy hearing. They were willing to sacrifice in order to help me! One thing the costumes did was create a lot of opportunities to talk with strangers, especially young children of all ages. I couldn't even beginning to count how many people showed up and were wandering around. Music was playing. Vendors were yelling, people were talking and laughing, shows were using microphones, jousters were eliciting yells from their supporters while on one stage a wolfman was howling.

And I could hear it! Not only hear it but understand most of it. Well, not the joust announcer. Turns out the rest of the family couldn't understand her either. One show consisted of a lot of drums and they sounds just like I remembered them. Either the Faire's speaker system was really set up to help those with hearing problems or my HA/CI were working overtime.

By the end of the day my feet were pretty tired (a lot of walking around) but my hearing wasn't tired. I had truly expected to miss most of what was going on as noisy situations are still very difficult as the background seems so much louder than the person in front of me. I do have to admit that the times I removed my HA to just practice with the CI it was more work, but doable.

It was so much fun having a little girl dressed as a fairy come up to tell me how she liked my dress and I could tell her how beautiful she was, and understand the conversations. Young children can be difficult to understand even under normal circumstances.

I wonder what the kids and/or grandkids - or greats - will come up with for my next homework assignment? Can't wait!

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