Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Fair Fun and a New High Score on the Grossness Scale

I've been going to the State Fair in my home state for my entire life....really, I have only missed maybe one year of my 34 years on this planet. It's a HUGE fair, and we always have a great time. I now live an extra hour and fifteen minutes from the fair, and have two young kids to tote around, so the motivation to attend each year drops a bit...and this year it was going to be hotter than snot (does snot qualify as hot?, it's really more body-temperature...but I digress). 96 degrees with 96% humidity is not my idea of fun, and I actually was planning to just skip it this year.

Funny thing is, JeepMan loves to go. Of all the things I would think he wouldn't want to do...but sometimes he surprises me. So we went.

We got there when the gates opened and took advantage of the cooler morning temps. We walked through all the animal barns first: cows, pigs, sheep, horses. Lulu loves animals and would have stayed in the barns all day long. Plato had lots of questions about the animals, mostly concerning their oversized genitalia. We then had an Elephant Ear (huge piece of fried dough with butter, cinnamon and sugar all over it) and a smoked turkey leg for breakfast. Ahhh, eating at the fair. Where anything and everything goes.

We then went to the Ag building and stood in a long line to see the Butter Harry Potter and the Butter Cow. The kids loved it! We perused the exhibits and scored free samples consisting of a hard-boiled egg on a stick and Soy Chocolate Chip Cookies . Then it was back to the pig barn to see the Farrowing exhibit: that's where the newborn baby piglets can be observed, and petted if you are lucky. Lulu was lucky, and now she wants a "pig-o-let" for Christmas!

After the farrowing display, the kids wanted a snack. Here's a picture of them:








It must be noted that the time of the cotton-candy chowdown was approximately 9:30 am. JeepMan and I had a little corn-dog fix at the same time (we shared).

The rest of the day was filled with excitement, sweat, and a gradual degradation of Lulu's mood to whining and cranky. We stopped for lunch, and as we waited for our food to be procured (a-la JeepMan), Lulu was getting restless. She kept putting her feet up on my (bare) leg, and I told her to stop it, that was gross. I said there was poop and pee on her shoes from cows, sheep, horses, and pigs.

Next thing I know I look over and she is LICKING the bottom of her shoes, looking at me out of the corner of her eye the the whole time to see what my reaction would be! UGH! This kid!!

A quick stop at the cake display, the kids getting soaked running through the water fountains, temper-tantrums in stereo about not getting to go on the oh-so-safe-looking midway rides, and it was off to home.

They were both asleep before we left the parking lot.

We did it, another year of the Fair!

Oh, and JeepMan is thinking he wants to go back next weekend......ugh.

1 comment:

Monnik said...

Ew, Lulu! That was quite an attention grabber.

Ah, the joys of the fair. We're hoping to go tomorrow afternoon/evening.

My favorite thing to do at the fair is people watch. I could sit for hours and watch the passersby.

I'm hoping for a break in the heat tomorrow, they say it might happen, so we'll see...