Come to the Fair

Wednesday we headed to the county fair.  Maddie, Jake and my mom were all excited to get there because each had entered some of their work in different areas and they were anxious to see how they did in the judging.

Once we arrived, we counted heads, loaded up the kids we could and started the long walk to the arts building.

Happily our knight in shining armour arrived and offered us - all of us - a ride to our location.

Mike and I squeezed on there too and unbelievably this cart got us all there.  This definitely saved some energy, and probably eliminated quite a few complaints.  Mike can be a real whiner.

We got to the arts building and right away found a quilt made by my mom's friend, Sue.  We were all happy to see that she had received a very large, very pink ribbon! 

Sue also managed to snag another pink ribbon for the blue/burgundy quilt.  Well deserved!  She's extremely talentend and has no shortage of patience for my many quilting questions when I take on more than I can chew.

There was lots to see but we managed to find Maddie's pencil drawing and we were so excited to see she won second place for her category!

She worked really hard on this picture last summer after taking drawing lessons from my mom. 

We looked some more and found Jake's entry.  He had taken a picture on one of our photo shoots last fall.  He entered this farm silhouette after a difficult decision of narrowing down his choices of the various farm shots he had. 

He was pretty excited to see he had received a first place ribbon for his age and category!

Mom was pretty thrilled when she rounded the corner and came upon the heart wreath she entered - it received first place too!

This will be hanging on our front door come Valentine's Day.

We finally found Maddie's second entry: coasters that she sewed all by herself.  It happened to be right below her picture and I can't believe none of us saw it on our first pass.

Attached to the set of coasters was a second place ribbon!

But that's not all folks!

We found mom's embroidered towels.  Second place as well!

Jake saw lots of lego creations and already his mind has been buzzing with ideas for next summer's fair.  We told Austin he should build a spaceship for next year; maybe we'll be able to get him entered as well.

After all this searching, mom and dad hung with Sue and her husband to look at more items and Mike, Tracy and I headed out with the kids to get some goodies. 

I mean...we were at a fair.  Fair food.  This should be self-explanatory as to why we were excited to get to the grub.

First up:  corn dogs.  How can you go wrong with corn dogs?

Turns out you can go kinda wrong with corn dogs.  Tracy found a pool of grease in the bottom of her corn dog. 

Riley seemed to enjoy it her meal. 

Tracy decided feeding Riley was for the birds and Riley took matters into her own hands.

This didn't make the dogs anymore appetizing.

Next up for Tracy's family was mini donuts.  $4 worth of mini donuts.

Sadly, Tracy has to convince her kids that junk food for dinner and dessert is an okay thing occasionally.

I just don't understand how there can be any blood relation between them and me.

Austin did what any red-blooded young man does after eating...

Isn't he the cutest in that hat?  I bet it's what saved him from getting in trouble regarding the stains on his shirt.

After eating dinner Maddie couldn't believe that the boys found a way to play Star Wars even at a fair.

We managed to work our way over towards the motorcross where we watched behind the fence because none of us was willing to pay the $10 entrance fee. 

Some of us were more enthralled than others.

I have no idea who that little girl was. 

After watching one motor-bike-rider being taken away in an ambulance (and informing the boys they were not taking up this sport...) we headed to the Midway where Ellie was begging to go.

It was a little louder than she expected.

We ended up telling the kids that the vendors had run out of tickets and we couldn't ride on anything.  Well, I might have said that.  Tracy might have tried being honest.  It's all a blur, really.

We ended up walking through all the animal buildings and having completed that task (as quickly as possible) we headed back to food row for a late treat.

When her kids asked what was in the water Tracy told them, "Big, scary monsters."  It worked...no one jumped in.

Riley and I joined them.  Then Tracy decided after we had all taken a turn carrying her, that Riley could be set free.

We also knew we were going to be leaving shortly so there wouldn't be too much chasing.

Tracy tried to get caramel apples for her kids from here:

When she got to the window the girl said, "We don't sell caramel apples."  Tracy told her, "But they are on your menu for $3."  It didn't matter...they weren't selling them.  She managed to find them somewhere else.  I'm sure they were only about $12.

On the way to the car we passed through the farm equipment.  Mike pointed out to my dad what he thought they should buy to get themselves and the rest of the family to their boat:

I think he's got my dad convinced; he still needs to work on my mom.

And then we headed out.  Some of use were happier than others.

Mom, Maddie and Jake are in cahoots to possibly enter their things in the Dakota County Fair.  Round two of fair food might be happening in a couple weeks.  I'm definitely not trusting the corn dogs.