County Fair

I am going to attempt to blog tonight....although the excruciating pain of the pimple that is smack dab in the middle of my eyes is causing extreme pain. Serious pain. And hopefully it will be halfway healed by morning, because I'm not sure there's enough foundation in my whole town to cover-up & hide this eye sore. I have to be in public places tomorrow.

So here goes some thinking...I'm warning you it's going to be cloudy at best.

Last Wednesday we were at the St. Joseph County Fair. This was the fair I grew up going to. I know, Here we go again with the ol' stompin' grounds thing. Well I can't help it, I'm nostalgic that way.

One of the favorite parts of going up to Centreville for the fair, is I usually run into old friends, and old school buddies that I haven't seen for a while. Problem was we were there on Senior Citizen Day. Not especially a lot of people I grew up with. But still fun.

Here is a little monkey that will tip his hat when you give him coins. He however will not take pennies. He's funny like that. He is totally in it for the money.

One of the favorite spots we have at this fair is the tent with small animal babies in it. They have baby chicks that you can actually watch hatch. William enjoyed it.
And Jack liked the baby lamb. Here he is modeling a small piece of junk he picked up from one of the free tables in the commercial building. That may or may not be in the trash already.
This fair also has a building that shows wool being spun into yarn. Pretty cool. As you can see in the picture above Suzy is keeping watch for suspicious activity in the yarn building. Poor thing didn't get her stroller pointed towards the yarn spinning.

Quote of the day:

From last night at dinner.

William is touching, antagonizing, and bothering Jack while eating.

Jack: "Mom, William isn't respecting my personal space."

Got milk? Wish we did.

Thanks to Isabella and her 4H poster contribution we have free admission into the fair all week. Remember when I posted back in May...how we got free passes? This years fair has made me feel more like I was at a circus than a county fair. Which is pretty cool to combine them. One of the free mini shows they have is a Tiger show. Pretty cool. The kids enjoyed all the facts the trainers told during the program.

There was also a "thrill show" which involved a little dog show, a trapeze artist, and other stunts by very talented people. Again free. The performer pictured here was amazing. She actually pulled herself up by the long pieces of fabric you see hanging. And then proceeded to twist and bend and hang by various limbs. Someone with that much strength is amazing to me. Then again I can hardly do a push up. And I am serious.

Fair food at it's finest. I love fair food! This year they added a roof top dining experience, Because of the fire that took out the previous building at the Relief sale last fall. Unlucky for us, there were no elevators for our stroller. But it was worth it to lug all fair paraphenalia up there. What a cool sight to be on the roof top. And to think we fed our family for $25. Gee what a bargain. Cough. Cough. Choke. Choke. That's with stopping at McDonald's before to feed the kids, and taking our own drinks. I need to find a way to get free passes for the food now. Geesh.

In case you are noticing that we are all in different clothes, let me assure you we do not take extra clothes along for different photo opportunities. I am obsessive about taking pictures, but not quite to that degree. Although with all the sweating I did last night, I would've loved a dry shirt. We were at the fair both Friday and Sunday.

We also got to watch cows being milked...which made me wish we would've brought our empty milk carton. Because we are out of milk again today. Did you know that a cow can give as much as 20 gallons a day? Way to go Bessy.




































And then there were the rides....the blessed rides.And at $2.50/ride per child....we were thinking one ride per child. Yes, we are cheap. So the 3 youngest decided to ride the train. It seemed just right for Suzy, who seemed like she was way too little to go on any ride by herself...but was oh so very proud with her Miss America wave every time she passed us. The boys were a little less excited to say the least of the train ride. Sorry boys. And almost 8 year old sister decided she was "too big" to ride the train. That's all well and good. So we waited and waited in line for the bumper cars for sister bear. Except when she got to the front of the line, she decided maybe she didn't want to go on that ride after all. Really? Because we've only waited a 1/2 hour for this ride. And I totally don't mind waiting in another line. Most rides were 2 tickets, but most of those rides were geared towards the "younger" size of child. We figured that out after we purchased 2 tickets per child, where we waited in line for the tickets. So we went and purchased yet one more ticket, so Isabella could ride something a little more her age. So she ended up doing the "fun slide." And I am smiling in the picture above because I am truly very excited to get out of the kiddie land and ride area. And what did Isabella say as soon as she got off the slide ride? "Can we get cotton candy now?" We have some issues with thankfulness I tell you. This was after we had ice cream, donuts, and a deep fried twinkie.

So on the way home Donovan pulled out of his hat a story from his childhood. And I quote from Donovan: "When I was a little boy, do you wanna know how many times we went to the fair?"

Isabella & Jack: "How many times, daddy?"

Donovan: "Never. We didn't go. So you should be thankful you got to go, and on and on...."

It's kinda like the story about Grandma & Grandpa and how they had to walk uphill, 6 miles to school every day.