Our first stop was in the "Historical Village" inside the fair grounds. This was a deliberate attempt to make a trip to a county fair a "field trip". I think it was a successful attempt because I must have heard, "when will we be done." and "this is boring" forty times per child.
Above the boys are modeling some of the props in the one room school house. Bryan was later told not to touch the pointer that Travis is holding in this photo. I think they need to know that, if you don't want a boy to touch it...you dang well better nail it down!
I thought the church was interesting because it had, at one time, been a Free Methodist Church. And most recently I have begun to consider myself a Free Methodist. Only in the loosest terms I guess. I don't pay for a pew seat and I can be methodical. Mostly, I just try to love Jesus and others to the best of my ability. But, I like the people, the preacher(and his wife) and the music at the Free Methodist church in my little burg. So I will call myself a Free Methodist and be okay with that.
After the Historical Village we took a stroll through all the animal barns. The boys determined that roosters and rabbits smell, sheep are pretty boring and if you've seen one cow, you've pretty much seen them all. They were not thrilled with the idea that many of these animals were being sold for slaughter...didn't stop Travis from eating 2 bacon cheeseburgers later in the day. I They did enjoy the baby animal barn where they made friends with this little guy here. I wanted to take him home as a pet but Travis said, "mom, it won't stay little and cute forever." And I said, "this is true...consider all of you kids!" So the goat did NOT come home with us.
We walked through another barn and found these, "DR FART" things. I'm not even sure what they were but I'm certain that if I would have been willing to plop down the money for them they would have provided endless hours of pleasure for my two young chargers. I mean, just the word "fart" can produce giggles...imagine the fun to be had making actual fart noises. It was just too much to process.
After we walked through all the barns we still had a half hour to kill before the midway rides and games opened up. Fortunately, a friend, Jacque came to our rescue. She and her husband work at the fair with the Mounted Police Division. She found us and gave us a "behind the scenes" tour of the fairgrounds on a souped up golf cart. It was likely the best ride of the day.
After our ride around the grounds, Jacque dropped us off on the midway. The boys were excited to ride some rides and since it was dollar day I didn't have to say no or put much of a limit on them. I even bought a few tickets for myself since I can remember loving fair rides when I was a kid. The first ride they went on was called Vertigo. They were strapped somewhat loosely into over-sized swings, raised about a billion feet (I might be exaggerating) into the air and hurtled around in circles.
The next ride I decided to keep them closer to the ground so I went with them on one of my old favorites the Himalaya. Wow, am I old! It was horrible. My neck whipped around and my knee ground into the big metal bar holding us in. I wanted nothing more than for the silly ride to end. Unfortunately, Bryan was still too short to go on several of the rides without me accompanying him...so I was in for more fun. My favorite part of the midway was a comfortable little spot in the shade next to the harmless, slow moving, close to the ground, non hurtle producing...bumper cars.
While they were on some spinning, twirling, death machine I talked to one of the "carnies" nearby who was hosting a game. I asked him how much it cost and what they had to do to win. He said, "everyone wins, if you pay $3.00 you get to pick a small prize, if you pay $5.00 you get to pick a big prize." I liked those odds. So when the boys came off the ride I delighted them with the news that they would, after all, be allowed to play "one of these ridiculously expensive games." They both showed their brute strength by ringing a bell and walking off with $6.00 worth of stuff that would have only cost a buck at the dollar store...the Fair:-)
On our way back home we stopped to visit G-ma and G-pa. Grandpa bought Wendy's burgers and Ben joined us to chat about the mindless things the little boys like to chat about when they have someone's "undivided" attention. They also gave Grandma a hug to help her heal after knee replacement surgery and we then proceeded to drive back to the Arbor.
There were definitely lessons learned today but they may have all been mine.
LOVE Travis and his teacher face.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the boys looking at the goat.
Very fun to read about your day!