The State Fair--In Pictures!!

I know it's been more than week since we went to the state fair, but I finally have pictures to share!  Dakota tried several programs to try to recover the photos and videos from the corrupt camera card, and one was finally successful!  Well, it was successful with recovering the photos.  I'm still waiting to see if the videos were salvageable.

So here we go!  We were the first in line for Little Hands on the Farm.  And yes, it was raining.

We went through the kids farm activities quickly so we could move to a dry indoor area.  But before leaving the farm activities, the kids had to spend their "earned" dollar in the store.  Josiah walked into the store and immediately ran up to a bin of potatoes.  He handed me a big potato and told me he wanted to buy it for me.  Sweet and funny!  But I insisted that he get a snack for himself; so he settled on popcorn.

Inside the baby animal building there were lots of newly hatched and recently born animals.  The baby calf wasn't one of the newest, but it was one of the cutest.

Speaking of cute things...

Ashlyn and Josiah tried out Mutton Bustin' for the first time.  Neither of them lasted long, but it was fun to watch.  Josiah said he liked his sheep, but it was too fast.  If you haven't seen the video, IPTV put together a video clip that included Ashlyn's ride and several glimpses of our family.  You can find it here.

Then it was on to the Mom Calling and Joke Telling contests.  (The perfect place to be while it poured outside!)  Ashlyn won 3rd place in the Mom Calling contest.

And Emma won 4th place in the Joke Telling contest!

It was time for some fair food after that!

And rides!  (During a brief break in the rain)  Emma and I wrote the scrambler together.

Ashlyn was able to get a camel ride in before it started to rain again.

Emma and Josiah weren't as lucky.  As soon as they got on the camel, the rain started up again. 

The girls also tried out a spinney roller coaster together.  Emma loved it!  Ashlyn said she liked it after she closed her eyes to keep from getting sick.

Next, the kids did some bungee jumping on trampolines. 

And we had one ticket left for the zipline, so Emma did that.  (Tickets for all but the bungee jumps were included in our stair fair ticket packs.)

Then it was time to ride the sky glider back to the middle of the fairgrounds so we could make a couple more stops before heading home.  Did I mention it was a rainy day?  And cold!  Riding a sky glider in the rain, as the wind is picking up, and you're already chilled to the bone, is not something I recommend doing.

Butter cow!

At the end, we defied the odds and actually found some friends of ours among the many thousands of other people who were there that day! 

It was a LONG day, and while there were still things we wanted to do and see, we decided to head home for a late dinner, warm showers, and comfortable beds.  State Fair, you were fun, but please save some better weather for us next year!