state fair 2013...

A big family tradition for us is going to the MN State Fair!  While I almost don't want to admit that we went yesterday on opening day because it means summer is almost through, how can I not share the fair fun?!  We were there from 10:30am until 7:30pm - a long day, but the kids did great and we all had so much fun.

In the Horticulture building, the kids were so excited (us too!) to run into our friend, Mrs. G, from church!  She was helping at the the arboretum exhibit - the kids got free passes by spinning the prize wheel so we will look forward to visiting there soon!

The animal barns are a big favorite, and the horse barn had a new hands on area where the kids were able to practice riding a horse among other activities.

Another church friend!!!  Sara was showing her bunny, Harry!  She won 5th in herdsmanship for how her rabbit is taken care of, and is looking forward to the main judging on Saturday.  (running into 2 people we know is a first for us at the fair!)

S took the big three on the sky ride while I pushed a napping H in the stroller.  We always tell the kids when they beg for fair rides that we have to do all the free fun stuff first, but this is our one exception. =)

Frozen Banana on a stick for a snack?  Why yes, thank you!  We love all the fair food and besides this treat we had wild rice burgers and corn dogs, waffle fries, cheese curds, applesauce from the horticulture building, a strawberry smoothie, chocolate milk... (yes, fair food is expensive for 1, let alone 6, but we shared most everything so everyone could taste and enjoy)

Of course we went through Little Farm Hands too.  G was pretty sad that she is taller than 4 chickens now.  No more pedal tractor rides for her!

This was H's first year that he could really do everything at Little Farm Hands by himself and he had the best time.  What 21 month old boy wouldn't love carrying around a bucket and putting stuff in it while walking around a mini farm?

S always takes a photo with me in it to make sure you know that I went to the fair...

 ...along with him and the kids...and about 106,000 other people!  It was beautiful weather for the day!

 We decided to stay a little longer, so that meant eating more!  A big bucket of French Fries and strawberry sundaes from the Dairy Goodness Bar was the perfect supper.

Oh and it was Dairy Goodness!

After supper we went to the Coliseum and watched the Horse Jumping competition.  We caught just a bit of it a couple years ago and the kids really liked it so we thought we would try it again, and the kids loved it.  H made us all giggle by saying "BEEP" in perfect pitch with the judges timer after it went off for each horse, and also by saying "Horse!"  "Jup!" and "nayyyyy" the whole hour.

So long fair, see ya next year!

a fair birthday...

Yes I know that I was going to post about G's birthday last week before H's, but there is always something, right?  This time it was stomach flu for the momma resulting in a cancelled 1st birthday party...but that is another post.  Here's G's birthday!

G's birthday at the end of August is always during the MN state fair.  We haven't always gone on her birthday though.  In fact the last time we were at the fair on her actual birthday she was this age:

This year it worked out that S was able to get her birthday off and it was also the only day that worked for us to go to the fair this year.  G, while she LOVES the fair, didn't know if that was how she wanted to spend her whole birthday...but by the end of it she thought it was pretty cool that we got to spend her birthday doing so many fun things at the fair:

*Getting in the fair this year was especially fun for all because we all got in free!  The big kids had earned tickets for reading in a library (not our own) summer reading program, and C's name was drawn to win fair tickets in our own library's summer reading program drawing.  There was even 2 tickets left over for Uncle L and Auntie J to use the following week. =)

*Going to the fair was especially important this year as well because we had gotten a call from G's art teacher the day the fair opened, and she had submitted a painting that G had done during the school year and it won a 3rd place ribbon!  So exciting for G!  We were pretty proud too. =)

Three other classmates of G's also won ribbons for paintings so it was really fun for G to find everyone's names and work.  We thought this showed some pretty good talent in G's class considering the number of entries from how many different schools in the metro.

*Next on the super important list after finding G's art was the Little Farm Hands, being that we missed it last year.  We HAD to get this photo for G (ignore this momma sobbing "oh my sweet baby girl is getting sooooo big!"):

That and the kids just love it.  I like to think they inherited a little farming blood from me...

G was particularly happy that the guy running the tractor booth was kind enough to let her drive the little tractors one more year.  Because as you can see from the chicken pictures above, she was taller than 4 chickens even with the most impressive slouch she could muster.  She pouted pretty good and made a comment about it being her birthday and the guy said, "Well, maybe just this last time."  =)

*Next on the B important fair items was food:

-cheeseburger bites (these were new and suprisingly good)

-wild rice cheeseburgers (S & my favorite)

-corn dogs

-waffle fries

*Then onto the horticultural building where the honey bee exhibits and apple exhibits are always great to go through, and S enjoyed the new craft beer exhibit as well.

And more food was consumed!  Apple cider freezies and cold apples were a huge treat on such a hot day (well above 90 degrees F!).

H was a big trooper and lasted WAY longer than we expected him to.  Some well timed naps in shady spots helped tremendously though.  That and he just LOVES being carried by momma and dadda (this was probably one of only 2 times he rode in the stroller).

*Skyride was next!  This started last year with one ride so the pregnant momma wouldn't have to walk all the way to the food building, and S and I were thinking it was just a special one year thing, but the kids think it should become a tradition.  So S rode with the big ones this year...

*Then came the animal buildings.  These are always fabulous with the kids, and also remind me a lot of going to the fair when I was a kid too.  We ended the animal barn tour with a fun game of B-E-E-F-O and learned possibly more than we wanted to about what other products have cow in them.

*It was now after 3 and the crowds were getting thicker and the air hotter and the kids crabbier.  So we skipped the Miracle of Birth Barn (can't do everything!), and went straight for our other all-time fair must-have, ice cream.  Not just any old fair ice cream, but ice cream from the Dairy Goodness Bar located next to the butter sculpture of Princess Kay of the Milky Way.  Super creamy ice cream topped with local yummy strawberries is our favorite fair treat.  So. Good.

By the time we were done with ice cream and back in the car, we were heading home during prime city traffic.  Like driving less than 10 mph for forever traffic.  I had kind of anticipated this, so I brought along something special for the birthday girl - a present to open from her aunt and uncle and cousins!

She was super excited for the Clementine books that were inside (and she loved the paper cake and tiny doll, G & K!!! =)...

 ...and the rest of the time passed quickly with reading.

Is that all the birthday fun a girl can handle?  NO!  What time is it?  Present-time! (2 points for PBS kid show reference =)

The want-need-wear-read present concept I found on a blog somewhere a while back, and we have been using it to try to keep from going present crazy and so that everyone gets thoughtful gifts.  (the bonus gifts in the corner are from grandparents and her cousins)  So "Want" was a new water bottle that she has been asking for, "Need" was a fun new game, "Wear" was a new dress for a wedding coming up, and "Read" was...

...the Little House on the Prairie Books (found the whole set in awesome condition at the used book store)!  So looking forward to reading these with her this next year.

So I think it is fair to say that G had a pretty great birthday. =)  Happy 7th Birthday to our sweet, loving, caring, enthusiastic, dramatic, happy girl.  We love you so much!

and finally, it wouldn't be summer without a trip to...

...the state fair!!!  This was our 5th annual trip - we have been going since G was one.  And we love it.

Since we have been going a number of years, there are certain things that we cannot leave the fair without doing and/or eating:

• ice cream from the Dairy Goodness Bar (not the Dairy Bar - believe me there is a difference between the ice cream!)
• wild rice cheeseburger and wild rice corn dog from Wild Rice Specialties
• scones from French Meadow Bakery 
• Miracle of Birth barn (always a favorite with the kids)
• all the animal barns of course
• Little Farm Hands

And since we have been going a number of years we also decided to do some things we haven't done before:

• missed Little Farm Hands (this was not intentional, and G was especially not happy about this, but we didn't realize it closed at 7!)
• saw the afternoon parade (other years we seem to have been in the wrong place or came to late and have always missed it)
• watched English horse jumping competition (this was really fun!  and the kids loved it!)
• rode the sky ride gondola

We ended up staying much longer than we were thinking, but only because we were having a good time and the kids were doing so well.  And we had great weather too! 

lots of animals were petted

watching the parade (U of M marching band had just passed!)

the horse jumping competition

why yes, we did eat french fries for supper

Momma and kids on the sky ride

G especially not happy that we missed Little Farm Hands (no photo by the chicken height chart this year!)...

...but a piggy back from Dadda to go get ice cream before heading home changed her mood!

4th annual trip to the state fair...

This is becoming one of my favorite family traditions. It was special this year too because it was our last big family hurrah before school starts for G.

Speaking of G...see how much she's grown?

fun at the fair?

beautiful weather? check.

3 excited children, 1 double stroller and a Baby Bjorn? check.

a walk through all the animal barns happily making animal noises at all the animals? check.

one cow tatoo for G? check.

petting baby farm animals? check.

corn dog? check. (a yummy wild rice one!)

food on a stick? check. (pizza on a stick - yeah!)

Little Farm Hands farmwork for G & W? check.

sitting on tractors? check. (don't ask about the adorable picture of little C I missed due to not having extra batteries along - I am still sore on that one)

ice cream and local strawberries from the Dairy Goodness bar? check.

2 happy and exhausted parents? check.

fun at the fair? check and double check.

(look at how much our big girl has grown from last year!!!!)

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!