Kyle took the day off work and we went to the fair for Dinah’s birthday. She was excited to go to the fair, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about us going on her birthday. However, this was the day where kids got in for free and adults got in for kid prices, so we had decided that this was the day we were going to go.
When we got to the fair we walked around talking about all the fair food that we wanted to get this year while we were here, and we tried to make a plan. First up we wanted to make sure we started with lunch. As we walked to the food court a magician stopped us, and started to do tricks to amuse the kids.
After he did a card trick he wrote “Happy Birthday Dinah” on one of the cards in his deck and he gave it to her, and we continued to the food court to see about lunch. We decided to get some loaded twisted taters for everyone to share.
This year the state fair had a circus show going on, and it was free with admission to the fair, but you still needed to get tickets. So when we finished eating we went to the little store at the fair to get some. While we were in there the kids ran into the magician again, and he did some more tricks for them. This ended up being a good thing, because while we were inside it started pouring rain outside, and watching his magic tricks kept them entertained and out of trouble till the rain was over. When the rain let up, we were going to check out the home arts building, but the kids were begging to go do little hands on the farm. So we walked that way instead.
We got to little hands on the farm and the kids knew just what to do. They went right in to get their aprons and baskets, and then we moved on to the grain building.
Then we got to go “feed” the cow, brush the sheep, stop in to look at the pig and collect an egg from the hen house. All of the animals are fake, but it’s supposed to help teach the kids about what happens on a farm. Then they got to “pick” an apple in the orchard.
And they got to plant a “seed”, harvest a vegetable, and drive a tractor.
Before we could be done we had to sort out all of the things they had collected on the little farm, and return their aprons and baskets, and they were then given a “dollar” that they got to spend on a treat in the store at the end.
Next we did the giant yellow slide. Ethan took Adam down and Kyle took Lydia down, since they were too small to go down on their own. The others went down on their own, although I think this year was Chloe’s first time going down by herself. After hesitating at the top, and making us think that she was going to refuse to slide down, she finally got going and screamed the whole way down! She even got airborne going over the bumps. 😉
We had a bit more time to kill before the circus started, so we walked around and played a couple of games. We played the game where you throw ping pong balls into fishbowls first, and got two balls in, so we won two fish. Then the kids wanted to play the game where you throw rings onto bottle tops, so we did. To win a giant stuffed animal, you just had to get one ring to land on a bottle top. We threw somewhere around two hundred rings, and every one of them bounced off the glass bottles. The kids were very upset that we didn’t win anything. Then they wanted to play the game where you pull rubber ducks out of the kiddie pool and see whether it has small, medium or large written on the bottom, determining which size prize you would get to pick. But I insisted that we head to the circus tent so that we wouldn’t be late.
The circus was a tiny one ring circus, and the first act was a juggling act. It was pretty impressive to watch this group of five people juggle with each other.
Then there was the couple doing tricks on the trapeze. Lydia, turned to me during their act and said very matter of factly, “Mommy, those people are going to fall.”
Next they had six camels come out and run around the ring in different formations.
The next act was a couple that got into some crazy positions that required balance and strength, sometimes with the woman needing to support the man.
The act after that was quite interesting. The man would wrap a cape around the woman or have her step into a giant bag, and every time the bag or cape was taken away, she was wearing a different dress!
The man did change from a black suit to a white one too.
Last they brought out a ball to have motorcyclists ride around in. We saw this at the last circus we went to, so it wasn’t new. I didn’t like watching the ball wobble while the motorcycles were going around inside, and thinking about what would happen if it were to tip off of it’s supports and start to roll…
When the circus was over, we collected our stroller and wagon and went to check out the animals.
We walked through each of the animal buildings, and didn’t see any babies this year. We had gone through all of the livestock buildings and were on our way to find the rabbits and chickens, when we discovered that they had an area dedicated to all of the animals that had babies. So we got to see a calf and some chicks and piglets, and some kids (the goat kind 😛 ). There was even a little incubator with some eggs in it and one of the eggs had hatched and another was in the process of hatching. I thought that was really neat, although my picture doesn’t show the inside of the incubator very clearly.
We went to see about letting the kids do some fishing, as that has become a tradition, but because of the rain (more specifically the lightning) they weren’t letting anyone fish. 🙁
While we explored the 4H building, the kids just lost it. They were done looking at stuff and they were cranky (probably from lack of nap), and Dinah was getting crankier (probably because she realized her birthday was almost over and we had spent it all at the fair and not doing what she wanted and when….) So we decided it was time to make our way back to the van. We got a large bag of kettle corn, and some deep fried treats to eat on the way home. Ethan wanted a deep fried, bacon wrapped Reeses peanut butter cup. I think that sounds horrible, but he said it was pretty good. Kyle got a deep fried Snickers for me, which totally looked like a corn dog to me.
The other kids got deep fried Oreos.
It was a long day and it was quite late when we got home. But I think the kids had a good time in general (even if they did get grumpy when we weren’t doing what they wanted WHEN they wanted to be doing it.)