Goin' to the Fair

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated.  Sorry about that.  We've been crazy busy.  In fact, this past weekend we went to the fair, went to our favorite homecoming parade, Lucas did a wedding rehearsal, and we had a new couple from our church over for the evening.  All in one day.  And it was our least busy day of the weekend.  I've actually banned Lucas from adding anything to our calendar for the month of October.

But enough about how busy we are.  It's time for pictures to show what we've been doing!  The fair was this past week.  It is one of our favorite annual events - dating all the way back to our college days!  It is just so much fun.  The twins and I actually went twice - once with the moms' group and once with daddy.

Of course, we checked out all of the animals.  Barn after barn full of cows, goats, sheep, ponies, horses, llamas, fowl, rabbits, cavies.  Animals galore!  The highlight of the animals had to be running into a girl we know who let the kids (Allie) hold her kittens.  Allie loved them and never wanted to let them go.

Checking out a favorite - ducks and geese.

Climbing up to see us.

No fear - she wanted to get as close as possible to see how a sheep gets a haircut.

Another highlight was the tractors.  I'm actually not sure how we've missed these in previous years, but I've never noticed them before.  Ryan was desperate to sit on every tractor, and cried when we left to see more animals.  The rest of the time he begged to go back.  A Nebraska boy at heart :)

On the Minneapolis Moline for Nerbaska Grandpa!

And an Allis Chalmer for Great Grandpa G.

 The true highlight of the fair, for the kids at least, was the rides.  In past years, we have always gone on rides.  The first year we hit the dollar ride day (brilliant, but not possible this year).  Last year, it was raining and there weren't many rides open.  The result was that we really how no clue how much of a financial investment this was going to be.  We ended up having to buy bracelets for all of us.  We specifically set aside money each month for fun things like this, and I had been hoarding it for the fair, but it still hurt to hand over that money.  I was thinking that it had really better be worth it.

Poppy's Boat!

 I don't have all the pictures to show how worth it it really was - because I had to ride most of the rides with them - but we started by riding almost every single ride that they were tall enough to ride (there were a couple we thought might be too scary).  Then we rode most of them again.

The animal train.  They sat in separate cars and spent the whole ride calling back and forth to each other!

 About halfway through our time there, we stopped for a promised "fair treat."  When we were there for the moms' group, I bought the twins their first caramel apple.  They loved it, and now ask why there isn't caramel on every apple I give them.  This trip, we decided the twins would try their very first elephant ear.  They, of course, loved it.

First bites!

Then we went back to riding the rides.  This time, in addition to adding a third (and, for some, fourth) round on all of our rides, the twins dared to try all of the rides we thought were too scary.  Like the tilt a whirl (which they LOVED), and the giant slide.  They loved the giant slide so much they went again, and again until there was a line again.  Then we ran off to another ride.

So much fun!

 In the end, we rode rides for 3 HOURS STRAIGHT.  Craziness.  But I totally felt like we had gotten our money's worth!  The twins would have kept going if we hadn't had to leave in order to make it to the parade on time (and I forgot my camera in the car, so no pictures of the parade).  I think, for me, one of the biggest successes of the fair was the ferris wheel.  Confession time: I am afraid of ferris wheels.  It sounds ridiculous, but they go SO high, and I'm always convinced that I'm going to get stuck, or something is going to fall.  The twins really loved it though, and it was the longest ride, so we went twice.  By the second time I actually found myself enjoying the ride!  Because of our super zoom lens, you can't really tell where we are, but these are our pictures from the ferris wheel:

 Best quote of the day:

Ryan: "When we went up so high in the trees I felt like a birdie!"

All of the ferris wheel workers laughed :)