Fun at the 2009 State Fair

One of the reasons I love the month of October is the NC State Fair. We have certain things we HAVE to do or see each year, but each year we always find a few new things as well. Here is a summary of our fair experience this year.

Casey here is modeling the latest in fair fashion. Beautiful dahhhlingg!

She is also showing her "wheels" for the day. We have never attempted the state fair without something with wheels to tote the kids around and I don't think we ever will until they are like 19. We walked pretty much nonstop for 5 hours there is no way we could have survived without this wagon.



This year I got brave and decided to enter one of the Cooking Contests. It was the Hidden Valley Ranch cooking contest. There were 21 entries. I didn't win this year, but have some ideas for next year. I consoled myself with some chocolate covered bacon (it happened to be right next door to this booth, how convenient). I don't recommended it though, it did nothing but make us feel queasy, imagine that!

Our favorite thing to see at the fair are the animals. We got to watch some of the heifer judging. They all looked good to me, but what do I know.


This is something we never miss...the cow milking. For $2 the kids get to milk a cow and get a little half pint of regular or chocolate milk afterward (not directly from the cow!) The kids love it, it's harder than it looks. Last year JW was sitting across from Casey and he squirted milk on Casey's shoe. They are still talking about that one.


I want to take the time now to apologize to the cow above. She'd be so embarrassed that such an intimate picture of her is on the internet. My apologies, lady cow.



Gotta love the babies.


The baby piggies are a must see every year.


We also love the Heritage Village area of the fair, but I didn't get any pictures, probably was reaching exhaustion by then. It has the blacksmith shop where Jason could spend hours and I usually have to drag him away.

Of course there is the eating. Here is a picture of JW eating Fried Alligator on a Stick. He loved it, he said "it is better than chicken!" He told me to go to the grocery store and get some alligator, I said "um, don't think that's going to happen"


Other things we ate today: Chicken Pita (it's a 12 yr tradition for Jason and I), Cajun fries, Cotton Candy, Chocolate covered peanuts, roasted peanuts, fresh pressed apple cider, kettle corn, corn dog, giant turkey leg, soft pretzel. All this added up to $12,000. Not really, but it was close and was probably 12,000 calories.

And of course there are the rides. If it was up to Jason and me, we would avoid the rides completely, but Casey loves to go on rides and insisted on a Ferris Wheel ride. For the 3 of us to go on the Ferris Wheel was $12! But it was worth it, it made Casey happy.



The view from the ferris wheel. All the mud on the right is where they were doing truck/tractor pulls.


Casey got to do one more ride. There is a short list of rides that I deem safe with these portable rides and one of them is the giant slide.




JW talked Jason into doing to dart throw instead of going on a ride. This is their loot (you don't even want to know what this cost us)

Finally when the fair looks like this, it's time to go! You can see my mom next to me in this picture (we both have the navy coats). Mom and Dad joined us today, Dad was the primary photographer as usual and didn't make it into any pictures.