County Fair 2011

It's hot.

I'm not talkin' 85* and I'm a bit uncomfortable hot.  I'm talkin' 98* with 80% humidity and a heat index of 115*.  I'm talkin' no need to take a shower because you step outside for a minute or two and you look like you just had one.  I'm talkin' I can't wear my glasses outside because they keep fogging up with steam.  I'm talkin' sending your kids outside to play is a punishment and not the privilege that it usually is.

It's hot.

And it's with this kind of weather that we braved going to the county fair yesterday.

Why did we go?  Because we always go.  Well, we didn't go last year because we were dealing with all of this drama.  But we usually go.  And Tess had never been and we couldn't just deprive her of that experience, now could we?

So we plopped her into her Snugli baby carrier, and the baby who I spent all of yesterday talking about how she wouldn't sleep?  Yeah, this was her within (literally) three minutes of being in the carrier.

That girl was out.  I guess the heat is good for something.

This year we broke with tradition in a few ways.  First, we didn't get dinner there.  Last time we went we found the food to be not-that-great and absurdly over-priced.  I mean, fair food is supposed to be expensive, but it's also supposed to be magically good.  Not this fair.  So we ate dinner at home first.

Second, we decided to ride the rides first.  In the past I had always made the rides the last activity.  I don't know why.  I guess I figured that the kids wouldn't want to look at the other fair stuff after the rides.  Instead, they whined all during the fair stuff until we got to the rides.  So this year we hit the rides first, and it was The. Best. Fair. Idea. I've. Recently. Had.

The kids were so happy and behaved themselves so much better while looking at the animals. Plus, it was WAY less crowded since all the teenagers and such don't usually get to the fair until later in the evening. We'll definitely be doing it that way from now on.

Our first ride was the Ferris wheel.  (Did you know that Ferris is capitalized because it's named after it's creator, George Washington Gale Ferris?  It's true.  He designed it for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.  I read a book about a serial killer at that fair, and for some reason the author was obsessed with the history of the Ferris wheel.  I can't remember the name of the book, but I do remember that it was all based on fact, especially the Ferris wheel stuff.  It was a good book.)

Anywho.

I don't care for carnival rides as much as the boys do, so I only insist on going on the Ferris wheel.  Here are the boys waiting in line.  They're much more interested in watching one of the games off to the side than in getting on mom's boring old Ferris wheel.

Finally it was our turn.  Lance, Spencer, and Josh practically ran to get on, leaving me with a rather reluctant Cole and a baby strapped to my chest.  Nice.  I was eventually able to pull Cole into the gondola.  He was not so interested in this whole adventure.

And once we got started Josh and Spencer weren't, either.  Although I don't think they would ever admit it, the ride made them a bit nervous, too!

Josh got a little more comfortable after a few minutes.

I don't think Cole would have left Lance's lap for a million lollipops.  (And he loves a good lollipop!)

Spencer faking a smile - the second before he was looking decidedly nervous!

Here's a little video of our ride.  At the end you can see just how excited Tess was about the ride.

Next, we hit the big slide.  It was a bit too big for Cole, so Spencer, Josh, and Lance had a race down.

Spencer was winning at first.

But then Lance and Josh totally took him down.

 

Cole stood off to the side, watching quite intently.  I thanked my lucky stars that he's not quite old enough to understand that he was missing out on something.  Next year will probably be a different story.

Lance, Josh, and Cole got to ride on the helicopter next.  Cole was quite pleased by this!

 

You can see how excited Tess was.

Next up: the bumper cars.  Spencer and Josh had been talking these up all day.  Spencer was over the moon that he was finally tall enough to drive one by himself.

 

Did you know that it's kinda hard to get pictures of your kids in bumper cars?  True story.

But it's really easy to take pictures of a baby who's really excited about the bumper cars.  (Or not.)

Then the boys decided that they just had to go on the roller coaster.  I use this term loosely, as this was the tamest roller coaster I had ever seen. No matter.  Josh was super-excited to be tall enough to go on, and Spencer was happy that he was tall enough to ride without Lance.  Plus, he got to sit next to a friend from school.  Bonus!

 

If you look closely enough you can see the top of Josh's curly head next to Lance.  Sorry, Josh.

 

Tess was not impressed with the roller coaster either.

Cole was a little impressed.  I think he was vaguely starting to realize that he was missing out on something.

So after that ride I left Lance and the big boys to go on one more ride while Cole and I made our way over to the animals.  It's a good thing we left when we did because toddlers are slow in decent weather, but absolutely snail-like in hot weather.  It took us forever!

But we finally made it, and soon so did the rest of our family.  We enjoyed looking at all of the bunnies and ducks and chickens and roosters.  Cole does a pretty good chicken impression:

Okay, not really.  But he's pretty dang cute.

By this time Tess was awake.  She had this crazy "Where did you people drag me to this time?" look on her face.  I kept laughing out loud at her.

We checked out some horses and a few of the 4-H and home economics displays (one of these years I'll enter something!), and then broke with tradition one more time.

Usually we get a big funnel cake and share it while watching some sort of horse competition.  But this year it was so dang hot that a $6 funnel cake just didn't sound all that appetizing.  So instead we loaded up into the mini-van and headed down to Igloo for some frozen custard.  It was awesome, cooler, and cheaper, which is always better.

So, in summary: It was hot.  The boys love carnival rides.  Tess isn't that impressed with the fair.  And sometimes it's a really good idea to break with tradition.