I had been hearing commercials for the Utah State Fair, and thought that it would be fun to go, but looking at the calendar our Saturday’s were quite full and was thinking maybe to just drop the idea, and plan ahead for it next year. But then I found out that there are Scout things to pass of by going to the fair, so I decided we just HAD to work it into the schedule for this year. 🙂 We decided to go today because Monday is early out day for the kids at school, and so we could leave early in the afternoon and meet Kyle at work to go up to the fair to spend the late afternoon/evening there, and because the fair was having a special where ALL kids get in free and adults get in for the kids price! Score! $14 for the whole family to get in!
We decided to head over to the wildlife building first (I forget what it’s actually called), since cub scouts are supposed to be able to fish in a pond out back and that fulfills some of the scouting electives. We walked around inside and looked at the various kinds of fish, and the kids got to try to pick up some antlers, and touch some animal furs. It was very nice that it was a very hands on building, considering most places like that are very ‘look but don’t touch’ and that just doesn’t work well for small kids.
After walking all around the building checking everything else, we discovered that the fishing pond was out back and we couldn’t just walk out the back door to get there, we had to walk all the way around the building. So we went out to the fishing pond and the sign said that the last fishing session of the night started in just a few minutes. Kyle went to talk to one of the guys behind the fence that seemed to work there and they said that they had already passed out cards to the people that would be participating in the next (and last) session of the day. We were rather bummed that we missed that but figured it was better to find out then than to stand in line forever before finding out. So we decided to go do something else.
We walked through the 4H building and we got to see all kinds of things that had been made by kids. Ethan and Jeremy were instantly drawn to the lego creations that were on display. My personal favorite was this candy dispenser:
Kyle has talked about making that type of candy dispenser before and Ethan has been wanting Kyle to help him make one. This one I think is just plain cool and creative. And you twist the nose and a candy slides out of the mouth.
We headed to the livestock barns, and got to check out a whole bunch of goats first. The kids really liked that the goats were nice enough to let them pet them:
After the goats we went to the poultry barn and saw a whole bunch of chickens. I think my favorites are the ones with the poofy heads:
Someday when I have lots of land with my orchard and garden and horses, I’m going to have some chickens with poofy head feathers. 😛
We also saw all the bunnies on display, many of them were for sale as well. I miss having a rabbit. Someday we’ll get another one. And there was also the building with bees and all kinds of produce on display. There were even a few giant pumpkins, which EVERYBODY was trying to get a picture of their kids on or I think I would have got a picture of my kids on them. Also in that building there were some houses made of sticks that looked like slightly larger popsicle sticks. But they were really cool houses, not just a simple frame, cube shaped house. And then there were other things made of horseshoes. It was pretty cool.
Next we went and saw some dairy cows and decided we had better head over to the little hands on activity that they had there for little kids. “Little hands on the farm” they called it. The kids got to pretend they were farmers and they got to pretend to plant and harvest and take things to the ‘farmers market’. Here’s Dinah scooping her corn:
And then driving a little pink tractor:
Here’s Chloe with her basket of goodies:
The kids got to pick a fruit off a tree in the “orchard” and they got to milk a fake cow and put a milk carton in their basket. They got to plant a seed, and then harvest a vegetable from the garden, and they got to collect an egg from the chicken coop, and they got to brush a fake sheep and collect some wool. Mind you all of this was fake but the kids really liked it. I just wish it wasn’t so crowded. EVERYBODY was just shoved through the course and everybody was in everybody else’s way. I just wish that people would have gone through it more like they were in line, instead of everybody running us over and separating me from the rest of my family…..At the end the kids got to turn in all their plastic produce and were paid with some pretend money, then they got to turn in their money for a treat at the very end. Chloe picked an apple. The rest of my munchkins picked a container of frosted flakes. :/ But they really liked it.
As we came out of the last barn the kids saw a giant slide and begged to slide down it, so we bought some tickets and Kyle took them up to the top and slid down with them while I stayed at the bottom with Lydia:
After the slide we walked around and looked at the other rides and games. By this time it was starting to be rather late, so we started to work our way back to the entrance. We kept our eyes open trying to find the deep fried snickers, but we never found them. We passed the building where they have home arts displayed and I really wanted to go check that out. There were some beautiful quilts on display that made me wish I knew how to actually sew, and there were lots of home canned goods that had been judged. Maybe next year I can enter some of my own canned goods. 🙂 Just maybe. It was a really late night, and we had a really good time. We finished the night off with getting a big bag of kettle corn to share and then we headed over to McDonalds to get the kids some nuggets for dinner, so they wouldn’t be going to bed only having had popcorn for dinner.