mn state fair in collages

Last Thursday S took the afternoon off of work and we took the kids to the "Great Minnesota Get-Together," otherwise known as the MN State Fair. We have gone the past couple of years and just love it. We even took W as a 1-month old last year! (We can't believe we did that though - were we crazy or what!) As good B's, we of course always do a little research and plan out what we want to do at the fair - and really, with as huge as the state fair is, it is nice to know what you want to do otherwise it would be overwhelming for us especially with antsy little kids! But Thursday was the opening day of the fair which we had not been to before and this means there are not as many newspaper articles or stories on what it good at the fair. But we looked at the fair's website and found some things we wanted to do and it was a very successful day. The weather was good, the kids did very well, and we all had fun!

And we both said that opening day is a great day to go:
#1, it is Thrifty Thursday, which means admission is cheaper and there are deals at various food vendors and other things which is great for us Dutch folk.
#2, there are about 40,000 less people than on a normal day which makes it a little easier to maneuver around, especially since we decided to bring the double stroller (which is big, but was a great thing to have along if only to get kids from car to fair and fair to car - and it was easy to haul all our junk too =).
#3, things are really quite clean yet - after 10 or so days of fair goers tromping through everything it can get quite grungy.

Anyway, when going through our pictures there were about 15-20 that I wanted to share with you! That could get overwhelming in one post, so I used a nifty computer program that I have called Lumapix. This was given to me by my friend T a number of years ago and I just love it. It easily organizes pictures in collages. So here are a few collages of our experiences at the fair!

Little Farm Hands - super neat hands-on exhibit at the fair that allows kids to become farm hands and do projects around a pint-sized farm. See if you can match what we did with the pics! G donned an apron and picked up her pail and entered the Cargill Farm (pic took specifically for Uncle L, who works for Cargill =). Then G figured out whether she could ride the tractors or not. She could, so she hauled her bag of corn to the chicken coop where we fed the chickens and gathered eggs. Then G planted and harvested potatoes (W helped too!), felt the wool on the sheep and milked a cow. Finally it was time to sell what she had at the farmer's market and take a picture by "Farmer" Charlie Brown. Oh and also take pictures as dairy farmers too. Good fun was had by all (even silly W)!
Petting the animals - this by far was G's favorite part of the fair. W loved looking at all the animals, but G loved petting them! We went through all the animal barns as well as the Miracle of Birth Center, and G was able to pet every animal that she could possibly want (with permission of course)! She pet bunnies, a horse, calves (even a 3 hour old one!), a turkey chick, a 5 hour old lamb, a 4 hour old piglet, and a turkey chicky. S and I enjoyed looking at all the animals as well, but I don't think we would have spent nearly as much time with them if we wouldn't have had the kids along. There is just something about seeing the excitement on their faces that you just gotta love.

Other misc pics from the fair - W fell asleep in the stroller against G's shoulder at one point (G was not too excited about this, but allowed him to sleep until we had reached our destination). We had ice cream 2 times at the fair, once from a homemade stand while we waited for the barn tour we didn't get to go on, and then again before we left from our favorite place, The Dairy Goodness Bar, which uses local everything! My favorite part of the day was with W in the cow barn. He has just learned the sign for cow and also how to moo so he kept us smiling as he excitedly signed and moo'd at the cows in the cow barn for 15 minutes! Then a pic of my silly boy playing "peek-boo" through the stroller window. =)
We were there from about 2 until 8:30pm. We didn't think we would last that long, but we actually could have spent longer as there were a few buildings (and food!) that we didn't make it to. For ummy fair food we had wild rice burgers, hotdogs (for kids), cheese curds, ice cream, and a local apple (which G said was her favorite until we hit the ice cream again =). Worst part of the day? Walking through chilly rain from the fairgrounds to our car (8-10 blocks). Oh well, at least it waited until we left to rain! And the kids were warm and dry since the stroller had a rain guard. Best part of the day? Definitely watching the kids with all the animals. And of course just spending a fun day together as a family! Until next year, state fair...

P.S. Don't look for a post until next week- we have G's birthday this Friday and have family coming to celebrate it with us over the weekend! That means I need to stop typing and start cleaning and getting ready!