Every year, the fair has different deals on each day. Today their deal was that kids get in free and adults get in for the kid price so we planned ahead and Kyle took the day off so we could go to the state fair. We invited Debby and Rexton to come along as well. Once we got to the fair the first building we checked out was a fine arts building. There were lots of crafts and art pieces. I really liked this one:
I had to send a picture of it to dad. He has worked, for longer than I have been alive, making brass instruments just like these. I worked at the factory too during my teenage years, and so it really caught my eye.
We decided that we should check the fishing pond for its hours so that we could go while it was open so that Jeremy could earn his fishing belt loop. They just happened to be stocking the pond with fish when we got there, so we got to watch.
Then we decided to take a break and get a lunch snack. We really liked the twisted taters that we got last year, so Debby and I and some of the kids found an empty table to sit at while Kyle went with the rest of the kids to get some twisted taters. This time though he had them make them up nacho style with cheese sauce, chili, and shredded pork.
He also got some German, Polish and Italian sausages for everyone to share. While we were eating this guy came by riding a giant chicken.
After lunch we decided to go through the home arts building. I always love seeing the fun things in there. The canned goods, and the baked goods and candies, and the quilts and dresses and crocheted things. I really liked the cute dino crocheted edging on this baby blanket. I need to learn how to do stuff like THIS!
By the time we were done in the home arts building, the kids had been asking to go to “Little Hands on the Farm” for quite awhile. Kyle decided that we should just and do it, so they could stop asking.
When the kids were done going through the little farm and they had turned their play money in for a treat at the store, we worked our way back towards the fishing pond. We went into a building that we had never explored before. It turned out to be full of vendors. We purposely avoided the building that we had found vendors in last year, so I tried to walk through this building rather quickly. Kyle and the kids however, were easily distracted, and Debby and I found ourselves standing still quite a bit to wait for Kyle and the kids to catch up. As Debby and I were waiting for Kyle and the kids to round the corner to go down the next row, Tyra came running up to tell me she lost a tooth while eating a piece of salt water taffy she got at one of the vendor booths. I had to take the tooth and wrap it in a piece of paper and put it in my purse to keep it safe.
Next we saw people taking dairy cows with FULL udders from the judging building back to the dairy building. Those poor cows walked like they were super uncomfortable. We followed, and saw that as soon as they got the cows back to their spots in the building they hooked them up to a machine to milk them. So the kids got to watch them milk the cows.
They weren’t able to use the milk from the cows though. I guess because conditions at the fair aren’t sanitary they had to just dump all that milk down a drain outside. 🙁 Tyra was very impressed with the milking of the cows and she started begging us to let her get a cow so we can have our own milk.
Then we walked through the goat building. There was some judging going on in the middle, and the kids noticed that some of these goats were being led by kids. They talked to these kids about what it’s like to raise a goat, and they talked about the kinds of things that you need to do while raising a goat. Now some of the kids want goats to raise.
I caught these goats nibbling Rexton’s toes but by the time I got my camera ready they had stopped.
We went into the 4H building next. Kyle helped the kids get their thermos’s filled using the drinking fountain. We started to walk around, but Kyle felt like we should get out to the fishing pond to wait in line for the next fishing session. It was sprinkling though and I didn’t want to stand out in the rain with the little ones, so Debby and I walked around the 4H building while Kyle took the kids that wanted to go fishing out to wait in line at the fishing pond. He sent me a message when it was time for them to start fishing and so Debby and I went out to watch. Thankfully it wasn’t too rainy by this point.
This year, they picked one boy and one girl from each fishing session to win a fishing pole. Jeremy and Dinah both ended up winning.
We finished up our time at the state fair, by checking out the agricultural entries and the bees, viewing the chickens and rabbits, and we let the kids go down the big slide this year.
On our way to the front gate of the fair we bought a huge bag of kettle corn, and we went to the van to start loading up the kids. Kyle ran back in the fair to buy some tiny donuts that we saw on our way to the kettle corn. They were fresh and warm and oh so yummy. 🙂
