fair-ly good

i love the fair.

well, what i love is (surprise!) the grub.  heh.  i haven't been in a couple of years, but MIL mentioned taking the bean so she could see some animals - and i thought it was a great idea.

we even found a discount ticket package at costco - 4 admissions, parking, and ride tickets for $55.  not too bad.  of course, our schedules were so nutty that we had to wait until the very last week of the damn thing to go, but that was okay - at least the teen was home to join us.

of course, we picked the most butt-ass humid, gross day to go.  ugh.  it had been a super weird day, weather-wise - random rain and "funder and lightning" (as the bean would say).  but at least we left around 6, so that the sun wasn't beaming down on us.  still, i wasn't excited to spend the evening drenched in my own sweat.  ew.

this lovely rainbow greeted us as we arrived.

our pass, of course, was only for the crappy general parking.  not wanting to cough up any extra cash, we passed on upgrading to the closer lots. 

of course, no one was really paying much attention - and we egged FIL on to wind through the aisles and get us into the VIP area.  successfully.  ha!  we ended up parking damn close to the entrance.

one of the fair's photographers roped us into a picture (okay, maybe it's not that hard to get us to stop and pose, so what).  my cheap, ghetto ass just pulled it up online and took a screen shot.  that's how i roll.

we'd somehow managed to enter through the gate that was right next to what we were there for:  the barnyard animals.  yay!

as we made our way to the barn, i was distracted by the bright, colorful signs for the reason i was there:

ah yeah.  but i'm a good mom - we did the animal thing first.

i caught this fella just as he was finishing up some business.

the bean happily mugged for the camera.

she was pretty stoked to see some real, live animals.  it was fun to watch her, especially when we took her to this:

and bought her a cup of this:

 and then were greeted by this:

she was fearless - except for a few moments when she got knocked down by an overzealous goat.  but she got over it fast, and had a blast feeding the critters that surrounded her.

i'm not gonna lie - this just looks plain painful.

outside, more deliciousness.  all hail the king:

 heh.  and i gave in to the temptation.

and believe it or not, the teen played along and ate a piece too.  it's so fun to have my meat-eating teen back.

more yummies:

the bean was double-fisting her funnel cake.

they deep-fry EVERYTHING at the fair, god bless 'em.

the bean really wanted to ride the giant ferris wheel, so the hub took her to the kiddie version and got on it with her.

see?  much smaller and kid-friendly.

she rode the merry-go-round too, but all of my pictures of her on it are super blurry.  boo.  and then the hub took her to the mini bumper cars, where she proceeded to glare at everyone who slammed into the side of her car.

 meanwhile, i took the teen to the booth that had caught her eye.

she wanted to win a prize for her sister, so we dropped a shitload of cash here:

as we passed this booth, the carny dude kept shouting out "aim for the hole!" and my 10-year-old humor couldn't stop giggling.

there was a ginormous train set that was really cool.  i half-joked to the hub about putting one in our back yard.  "don't tempt me," he said.  i forgot that he collected those trains when he was younger.

we decided to grab hot dogs at the pink's kiosk.  none of us had ever tried it before, and although my friend weezermonkey has mentioned dogs with "a nice snap" before, i'd never understood what she meant until i bit into that phallic-looking thing - a bacon chili dog, hold the chili.  heh.

oh, and the bean loved her sister's gift (of course.  she'd love a turd if she gave her one).

and a final treat for her - dippin' dots!

yup, i sure do love the fair.