A Little Country Bumpkin

I love fairs!!! I super-duper love them. There were all kinds of country fairs in the area I grew up, and I loved going to the State Fair in the summer. I also always loved the Lammas Market that came to St Andrews every summer.

So, imagine my glee when I found out that there was a fair HERE! A fair to go to that would be huge and exciting and fun! The LA County Fair was in town, the biggest county fair ever, for little old me.

Then, things happened. Then the kids got sick. We were down to the wire with tickets to go and a feverish child and it was the last stinking day of the fair! Well, we threw them in the buggy and handled that fair like a boss with flushed cheeks. Priorities!

We saw the gobzillion people that attend such things.. We visited the barn full of animals.. (which included haystacks to jump on!)

We marveled at the insane number of meats you can skewer with a stick, and the size of them.. my goodness gracious, I could not believe the size of the servings! Insanity, I tell you! Hot dogs longer than my forearm. So wrong. And the legendary deep-fried options.. Not just twinkies and oreos, no. There was deep-fried watermelon and deep-fried cookie dough. Not to mention the deep-fried Kool Aid (I don’t even know..). I burst out laughing on a number of occasions when we walked passed yet another meat-on-a-stick stand.

As you can imagine, Aed wasn’t entirely enthusiastic. His fever had been on and off the day prior, and though he didn’t actually have a fever when we left for the fair, he definitely wasn’t 100%. Had he been 100%, he would have loved it, but as it stood, there wasn’t much he was impressed with from where he sat (though he did like anything that involved getting out and running away.. fevers be damned! There's no stopping him!). Then, suddenly I heard giggling. I kept trying to figure out what he was laughing at, but for the life of me, I had no idea. Then, I saw it.

He thought the log ride was hilarious to watch. He even insisted that he wanted to ride it! We stood there for quite a while indulging him in this hilarious pleasure. I really wanted to try the ferris wheel with him, but I just kept having visions of horrible endings and decided it wasn't worth it. Maybe next time :).

We heard that Cirque De Soleil was performing at the fair, so naturally I was intrigued. There was only one performance while we were there, which happened to be a show with lights.

It was pretty good, but it took us a while to find it, so we didn’t get seats. We also had restless boys who weren’t all that interested, so after a brief peek, we moved on. It was very cool to watch what we were able to see, though. :)

One of the last things we did was take Aed on the carousel. This in and of itself was kind of a nightmare. There was a line, and he wanted to go, then he didn’t want to go, then he threw a fit, then he wanted to go, you get the idea. Normally after that much trouble we’d just have said we’re done, but I knew he’d enjoy it and I knew he was tired, so we waited it out and he rode with Daddy.

The two grumpy gills..

Asher and I ate some snacks while we waited.. Turned out he did enjoy himself, and was glad he rode it! 

The very last thing we did was use up our game tokens! We had a bunch to use, so Daddy played lots of games to win Aed (and Asher, but he didn’t care as much) a plethora of animals to bring home.

I think we were glad we did it, trying to have some unique fun while we’re here, but we were all glad to head home. There were a lot of other high points that aren’t pictured, like a big room with fish tanks and a pirate and safari area.. there was seriously a lot to do. There was also, somewhere in the abyss, an area that was supposed to be Mr. Macgregor’s garden. We mentioned that to Aed, thinking he’d be excited, but soon learned that he harbored great fear of Mr. Macgregor and had absolutely no interest in having anything to do with it! Even when he found out he’d get to meet Peter Rabbit! I couldn’t believe it, but I was well convinced after hearing how much he didn’t want to go.. over and over and over. Such a funny boy.

Asher is in the buggy.. poor thing didn't get a single cameo!

So we took our sleepy selves home and knew we had made some memories. This was really our first fair experience together as a family. I definitely think it will be more fun as the kids get older (and more expensive!), but it was a great trial run. :)