We went to the NC State Fair tonight! We all had a blast, as usual. 🙂
We started by leaving late … as usual and NOT being able to turn into our normal turn to park. So we went around and got the BEST parking spot we’ve ever gotten before. 🙂 Just goes to show you, sometimes a roadblock is good! 😉
Normally, we bypass the Village of Yesteryear, but this time we didn’t. Ron and Joseph hung out watching the Blacksmith work and the girls and I strolled around and had some Apple Cider Fizzie. Essentially an apple cider slushie. It was gooood! Yum yum!
Time for dinner! We picked St. Pauls Christian Church and got burgers, fries and hot dogs for our dinner. Why did we pick them? Because the first place I picked smelled funny (not to Emi, to Ron 😆 ) and this was next door. 🙂
We headed over to see the photographs I have up (See this post) which were awesome, and on the way, the girls pointed to the horsies on the carousel, so we planned to go back. While in the Jim Graham building, we “lost” Joseph, who’d wandered away and freaked Ron and I out tremendously. But we found him, had the “talk” and moved on. Made our way to the art section, saw “mommy’s pictures” and snapped a few of them on display and then headed back out, stopping at Olive Chapel’s and Turner Creek’s art displays too.
There was one REALLY neat pencil drawing in the 9-12th grade competition. It was amazing. You have to see it to believe the detail in it. Obviously, it won. 🙂
As we departed that area, we headed to the carousel. The girls each got on a horse and I stood between them. Emi LOVED It immediately. Abby started off ok, started getting freaked out and then relaxed when she saw how excited Emi was about the up and down movement of the horse. All in all, they loved it and didn’t particularly want to get off. 🙂
We walked through the kiddie section next and the girls decided they wanted to ride the cars … the cars that they can “drive” and honk the horns and they go around and around and around in a circle. I wasn’t sure the girls could go alone, but i certainly couldn’t fit with them. Turns out, they were tall enough — by many inches, so into the car they went. They “picked” the yellow bug. Both sat up front and drove to their little hearts content.
Again, Emi was tickled to death at being there and riding the ride — I KNEW this would be the case. Abby would get concerned every time the car “faced” a direction that wasn’t looking at us. Of course upon “turning” toward us, and seeing us, she was ok again. Took her about 10 rounds to figure out we hadn’t left. 😆
We then headed to a caterpillar-looking thing that also goes ’round and ’round and “flies”. Both girls watched it and indicated they want to ride it. This one freaked me out a bit more because it goes “in the air” and I worried the girls would freak out as it goes up and want out. They were the ONLY kids on the ride, so I figured if that happened, the guy would stop. Not necessary though. Again, Emi squealed with delight and Abby did too.
We then tried the “duck game”. Each girl got to pick 1 duck and won a price no matter what. $2 each for a guaranteed win was fine by me. Emi picked a sun and Abby picked a smiley face – which she subsequently lost, along with her milk cup, a few hours later. 🙁 During all of this, we were either stopping to play a game with Joseph or listen to him whine and complain that he “just wanted to buy something instead”…. but the rule at the fair is “no buying… winning only”.
Joseph threw a few darts (easy wins) and tried several of the “gun” games — shooting something. Lost all those. Of course he just doesn’t realize how hard these games are! He thinks they should be easy. He was really upset as we were leaving because he didn’t win any of the stuff HE wanted … just mini-stuffed stuff for the girls. Oh well. That’s life. At least he got to shoot a “gun”. 😉
We headed to the cows after the duck game, stopping by the Army National Guard as usual. They had a BIG helicopter there for “show”. While Ron and Joseph talked flying and guns with one of the guys, the girls and I hit UNC-TV and said ‘hi!’ to Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Elmo. 🙂 Despite Barney’s presence, they didn’t know who he was (thank goodness!). There weren’t many cows — not like in years past, but they were there. There was on HUGE male cow on the end that, while seemingly sweet, also seemed a big, well, annoyed. He kinda stared holes through the girls and I, so we carefully walked away. 🙂
One cow was moo’ing up a storm, so of course, the girls did too. 🙂
After cows, we went for food again. This time, funnel cake. Those things are $5 each now! And with a family of 5, that means 2! Yikes! Joseph pouted through most of this little adventure — complaints about games vs. buying something … again … (Pam/Dave — Ron is supposed to call and apologize to you guys. Karma is an interesting thing. 😉 ).
We also walked through the 4-H show and the vendor area. I noted to Ron that I felt like the fair was 1/2 fair and 1/2 flea market this year. I stopped at Cookie Lee Jewelry and found I might have a new customer. 😆 We skipped the big pickle this year and opted for some pizza instead. So, yes, at 9pm at night, we had cold pizza. I was probably the ONLY one that actually liked it.
We kept walking around, using up the rest of our $105 for the night on games and such. The girls were in and out of the stroller, dancing in the street or strolling to the next stop. Our last purchase of the night was the traditional cotton candy and our last activity was to sit, eat that cotton candy and watch the awesome fireworks display for 15 minutes.
All in all, it was a grand night and I love that our family could spend time together at it. 🙂
Oh… and Emi made it the ENTIRE night without an accident! Woohoo! One down, one to go!