Well, it's that time of the year again! Time for the Woodbury County Fair!
Alainna was really excited to go since she can remember her visit last year. Grandma and Grandpa took the kiddos out and Eric and I met up with them after work. Alainna took us right to the building housing Nicole's 4-H exhibits so we could check them out. They definitely deserved the blue ribbons she received!
After a couple orders of potato ribbons with cheese (there's a reason I should only eat these things once a year!) and fresh squeezed lemonade, we headed toward the carnival rides. You know - the carnival rides that look as though they were in their prime during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency? Anyway, after purchasing some overpriced tickets, and trying to get Alainna to understand that each ride she wanted to go on took 4 tickets, Alainna chose the Super Slide. Jack and Will anxiously watched as Alainna climbed the steps. After watching her joy and she came sliding down, Will was about ready to jump out of the stroller. After Eric started up the steps with Will, Jack started complaining because HE wanted to go, too! Will and Eric made their way down the slide, and Will loved it!
Then, I took Jack. Our dear, Jack. What was the first thing he did? He tried to run up the slide instead of taking the steps. Then, I had a bit of a battle trying to coordinate getting the scratchy, dusty, icky potato sack set to go with Jack, trying to go down the slide without me. When we finally took off, whoa, what a ride it was! When we got to the bottom, Jack ran toward the steps for another ride. He was a little disappointed when I carried him back to the stroller.
The next choice was hard. We told Alainna that we had enough tickets for ONE more ride. She had to decide between the merry-go-round (which she had declared as her "favorite" earlier in the evening) and the bounce house. After going back and forth quite a bit, she chose the merry-go-round. Oh, my! I remember last year the boys not wanting any part of the merry-go-round. But this year they LOVED it! I think they would have taken another spin it we had let them. After finishing up on the merry-go-round we told the kids it was time to move along and we'd check out some of the animal exhibits.
That's when the tears started.
And the screaming.
And the whining.
The majority from Alainna, of course.
I think next year we will have the discussion about "each ride takes X number of tickets, we only have XX tickets, so we can only go on X rides."
Or we avoid the carnival completely. But is that really possible?
Once everyone settled down (or at least settled to the point that we could get the boys into the stroller) we walked through some of the animal exhibits. Pigs, sheep, bunnies, chickens, ducks, turkeys, cows, horses, and goats! What an amazing experience for the kids! Some of the goats stuck their heads through the bars and the kids thought that was pretty neat. The beautiful horses fascinated them, too - especially when one kept "whinnying" at anyone walking past!
After a quick stop for a soda for me, a bomb pop for Alainna, and a funnel cake for Eric (which he had to share with ALL of us!) a nice gentleman walked by and offered to take a picture of all of us.
Then it was time to go home. I tried unsuccessfully to get a picture of all three kids by the "Welcome to the Woodbury County Fair" sign and the statue of the calf at the entrance. I finally threw up my hands and decided I wasn't going to get the "perfect" picture.
We were all exhausted by the time we got home but I know the kiddos loved [almost] every minute of their time at the fair!
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