A DAY AT THE FAIR

Today I took a vacation day from work to go to the Oregon State Fair. It's been over 10 years since I've been. Back when I was in highschool I showed beef cows in 4-H so we'd go to the county fair for a week and then we'd also stay a week at State Fair. So this is a place that I was extremely familiar with but since it's been so long since I've been I was a little rusty on navigating around.

We got there in the morning and entered on the carnival side. Saw some little toddler rides that we thought Mackenzie could go on. So we went and bought tickets and went over to a little car ride, remember she was on one here recently at a local amusement park. Well, she couldn't get on. She was not tall enough! The ticket taker thought the only ride she could go on would be the slide. Kind of irritated but ok, rules are rules. So we headed over to the carousel and I went on that with her. We had saw the huge slide there and we thought we'd head out to see the rest of the place and do the slide on the way out.

We wandered all around. We saw the big draft horses, the miniature horses, the goats, the pigs, the litter of pigs and the cows. We caught a cattle show and stood by and watched as the kids paraded their groomed animals around. I was even still pretty good on picking the winners. Steve would comment about the smell of the barns and I have to say, I don't mind the smell. It's such a familiar smell and it brings back a lot of fun memories. I think he thought I was nuts.

We visited the petting zoo, the reptile area, poultry and rabbits, exhibit halls, saw a little girl trying to stay on a sheep, a dog agility show and even watched a draft horse show.

Around late afternoon we felt we had seen most everything so we headed towards our gate and proceeded to the big slide. Once again - height requirement! The guy there told us that they just raised the height requirement on the slide the day before and suggested we go try to get our money back on the pack of tickets we had bought and hardly used. So the rides were a HUGE disappointment. We get that there are rules for safety but the slide? Where they sit on your lap? Not sure why some stuff matters when there is an adult accompanying. I'm honestly surprised we made it on the carousel. So really there is nothing there for an almost 2 yr old to ride on. Not sure what all the other families do. Ok, I know. I'm stepping off my soapbox. Thanks for listening.

So we did get our money refunded on the unused tickets and since it was the end of our day we headed on out. It was a pretty hot day and we did have a good time and it was nice to see the fair but it's one of those places that you feel you don't have to visit every year.

Did somebody say tomato?

The only ride she was able to go on

"that sure is a BIG PIG mom"

petting the goat in the large petting zoo

Typical. Once again loving the stuff on the ground more then the animals

not a good one of Mack but wanted to get Daddy in here. On our way out.