the year of second place

the l.a. county fair has come and gone, and i can't believe how fast the time went by this year.  we debated going on opening day - mostly because the bean and i were dying to see how our entries fared in the competitions - but we decided to hold off and wait for sunday morning as soon as the gates opened.

because i'd bought a groupon for our tickets, we got to bypass the box office...although there was no line anyway because of the early hour.

first stop, breakfast!  we shared some cheesy bacon bombs and french toast bombs to start off with from here:

it was blessedly overcast and rather cool that morning.

after devouring those little fried pieces of heaven, we headed right into the culinary showcases to find my cookies.  as i expected, my idea was nowhere near clever nor original:

and we were pretty surprised to see that the wooden benches had been replaced with these comfy pleather chairs.

the old lady and the hub found my cookies first, and although i'd gotten a heads up from my friend AMP on opening day, i was still pretty stinking stoked to spot that red 2nd place ribbon next to them.

i've now taken 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.  i wasn't even aware that there was a 4th place ribbon until i saw it in another case in all its pink glory.  is it wrong that i'm kinda hoping to take 4th next year?

next it was the bean's turn.  we walked through a few buildings before we finally figured out where her drawing was, and she was beyond excited to see her art on display.

but first - did you know that there was a category for entering collections of stuff?  like, some kids actually turned in their prized shopkins collections to have them put on display and hopefully take home a ribbon.

there were tons and tons of pieces of art to look through as we searched for the bean's pencil drawing of judy hopps from zootopia.  the old lady found it first, and then brought her sister over to see it.  it was up high, so the hub picked her up for a good close-up look:

the other half of the building was set up with all sorts of fun stuff for the kids to play with.  there were fun photo ops:

big areas for dress-up and other imaginative play:

 and even a few simple but fun games.

 all the while, we were being side eyed by the bunny in the cage.  kinda creepy.

in the next building, we found all sorts of sports-themed games and exhibits.

of course, there was lots of shopping (i really want an embroidery machine):

and more food.

 plus a lot of cute animals:

 and the bean decided to partake in her sister's annual henna tradition.

with our feet throbbing, we indulged in $.50 worth of foot massages on the footsie wootsie:

 took one more look around:

and bounced outta there.

 i'd call that one pretty productive fair day.