Love-A-Fair

Upon arriving at the State Fair, we realized there was no stroller in the van. The stroller is important because in the sea of people, we can put Eve on lock-down when she starts to melt. But more importantly, we need some place to rest our food and drinks.

So we rented a wagon. You can fit a lot of food into a wagon. Equally as important, you can fit three kids.

We did cool stuff like look at animals and eat food and ride rides.

You could see a few people from the Ferris Wheel.

Who was down there? Human oddities! Freaks of nature! Little people of Borneo!

There were many ride tickets. There were many trips to fun houses to use up said ride tickets. I'm sure the fun houses were free of germs and weirdos, or at least people uncomfortable with looking at themselves in a wonky mirror.

Still more tickets to use. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to stand on ground that doesn't move in a circle, especially after the eating I was doing.

Note the sticker and the cotton candy entering the mouth.

At no point did my daughter actually eat salad at the fair. This was a big fat lie perpetrated by people who had to give away the rest of the stickers on the last day of the fair. Because, unlike corn chips at the fair, stickers will expire and need to be used or losed. Corn chips can be loosely packed away until next year's rendevous with nacho cheese.

Eve ate all of her cotton candy because she hadn't reached the top of the food pyramid in a few days.

I ate pretty healthy this year. Just a country ham biscuit.

And some shawarma. Because nothing says North Carolina State Fair like shawarma, shawarma, shawarma.

And a little bit of fried cheese to cut the taste of all that healthy food.

And an apple cider smoothie to cut the taste of all that grease.

Daniel's favorite part of the fair was using a mini-sledge hammer to fling rubber chickens into the air. I wanted to do it, too, but didn't want to freak out any little kids because it's a widely known fact that I don't realize my own strength. I could have beamed a rubber chicken into some poor kid's head and given them a concussion. At least that's how it went down in my head. And maybe the kids were misbehaving and deserved a good rubber chicken to the temple in case their parents forgot to bring the Benadryl.

Eve was jazzed to find all her favorite friends at the fair. They were larger than life, or at least larger than Eve. You didn't even have to pay to see the freak with the four foot-wide face.

Nat is much better at hula-hooping than Matt and I will ever be in all our days. That's one thing I've been lackluster at: hula-hooping and cartwheeling. Wait, that's two things. But I've really gotten better at the hula hoop now that I have the child-bearing hips. I still can't do a cartwheel, though. I'm okay with that. If I die tomorrow and can't do a cartwheel, I'll still be okay with that. I'm cool with only using my feet to support my body as I move around the world.

There were inappropriately large gourds. This one weighed more than our family of five combined. I know this is mostly due to the fact that three of our family members are ages 4, 5, and 6, but still...that's a really big pumpkin. If I had a pumpkin that big, I'd name it Dude.

And then there was this steer that sold for $25,000.

That's worth a lot more than our duct-taped van. AND this bad boy probably has some serious filets just waiting to be smothered in hollandaise.

All in all, I think I might have finally made up all those calories I burned on the Ultimate Hike.

I don't have the heart to tell these girls that after puberty they will have to train all summer for a 28.3 mile hike if they want to eat at the fair AND fit into their jeans.