A Day at the Fair

K and I met up with some friends at the county fair this Saturday. We were going to go as a family but after L through a huge tantrum we decided to leave her at home with dad. It was probably for the best anyway, M hates crowds and we had a great time together.
We started out watching freestyle motor cross. It was similar to the one we saw at the rodeo, but the riders were working in a much smaller area. Some of the things they did scared us and we were surprised they were able to pull them off. At the end of the show they did a train of back flips. If one of them messed up, they all would have crashed. It was amazing! We could have stuck around to get autographs and pictures, but the kids were anxious to go on some rides.
K and I went on the Ferris wheel first. I am so afraid of heights, but I did it for her and she loved it. There was a pretty good view from the top and she kept commenting on how pretty it was. After that she went on some kiddie rides with her friends.




When our tickets were all gone for rides, we let the kids play one game. The game they chose was simple. You pick a duck out of a pool of water and you get the size prize that is written on the bottom of the duck. K was lucky and pulled out a duck with L on the bottom. She picked out this cute lemur which she named Lemey the Lemur.
There was a kiddie area we took them to so we could rest while they played. There were musical instruments, hula hoops, bean bag toss, golf, ring toss, building blocks, a huge puzzle map, and a tunnel to crawl through. G and K had fun trying to hula hoop. There was one boy there who kept three hoops going at once, I was quite impressed. I have never been able to hula hoop, not even on Wii Sports.

I loved how they took old items and turned them into instruments. The water jugs made great sounding drums and so did the tubes. Have you ever thought of doing something like this Sue?

This year there was a jungle to explore. It was dark, hot and humid inside with lots of animals from the rain forest to look at. There was also a show for the kids. The parrot was entertaining as was the capuchin monkey, though after hearing about their traits I would never want either for a pet. Apparently parrots screech for an hour every morning when they wake up and monkeys like to pee on anything they like to mark it as their own. Not endearing traits of an in house pet.
There was also a tarantula that they let two little kids hold. I was horrified and had a hard time not fleeing the scene. Before she brought it out she asked for volunteers to hold a cute furry animal. Apparently tarantulas are light as a feather and have soft furry legs. But you could never EVER get me to hold one. I was so glad it wasn't my daughter, though she was disappointed she wasn't called on stage to hold it. I suppose it's good my arachnophobia isn't rubbing off on her.

In the afternoon after checking out the farm animals and having an elephant ear, we watched the BMX bike show. These guys were amazing! I think I have more respect for them then the motor cross dudes because they have only their muscles to get them up a ramp fast enough to do flips and stunts in the air, still landing safely on the other side.
The guy on the left rode a bike up a 5 foot ramp and was able to do tricks at the top before landing on the other side. At one point they asked for a tall volunteer from the audience to stand on top of the ramp and let Jared ride over him. Liz looked at me and I said, NO WAY!! Some guy volunteered and I watched in amazement as he stood there like a statue staring down this guy riding his bike toward and over him. It was AWESOME! We got autographs and a picture with the kids afterward. The guy in the middle did stunts on a skate board and the guy on the end is 39 and was doing great stunts on the half pike.
Before we left the kids participated in a pedal tractor pull. K had to pull 15 pounds across the stage. She was able to pull it 13 feet, she did amazing!
We had a great day at the fair. Thanks for inviting us, Liz. Maybe next year the WHOLE family can participate. By the way, this was much cheaper than Old Fashioned Days. It was only $5 dollars a person to get into the fair, but we had two free passes from a friend. The only other thing we paid to do was rides and food. The rides were .50 cents a ticket and only 5-7 tickets a ride as opposed to 1.25 per ticket and 5 tickets to ride. We paid 20 dollars for 40 tickets which gave us 5 rides and a game to play. The food was pretty inexpensive and there was an abundance to choose from. Definitely more bang for you buck.