I haven't been to the State Fair since Kate was a very large baby in my tummy....like I literally gave birth to her within a couple of weeks of going last time. (This was the time that we were given a ride to our car from the exit gate by a police officer who had pity on a huge pregnant belly. I believe I had told Nick that I could go no further and to just save himself.) Kate needed to experience the fair, and it's one of my favorite things to do in the fall for some reason so we picked last Wednesday to go (because on Wednesday's you get in for $3 with 3 cans of food for the food bank) and off we went. Vickie and Bill carted us over there and treated us to some fun that day. Nick didn't really want to go (mostly because he is cheap and didn't want to spend the money) so he worked.
We got there around 1 pm and left around 8 pm, so we had about 7 hours of fair fun. The only reason we survived that long is because I took the stroller - otherwise Kate would have been done hours before then. As it was, seven hours at the fair wore her out.
The big fried food winners this year were the fried Cuban roll and fried Thanksgiving dinner. Neither of those sounded appealing to me, so we didn't feel the need to try them. We all had a corny dog and some tater twisters as soon as we got there, because it's not a day at the fair without a corny dog (it's a known fact that they taste better at the fair). We did have a fried snickers later in the day and also I had some fried firecrackers (it was sort of like a spicy tamale thing) and before we went home we split some chicken fried bacon. It was more than enough food - and I am really thankful I don't eat fried food on a regular basis because I felt pretty icky after.
Kate took a few minutes to warm up to the petting zoo area, but eventually I got her to feed the zebra with the shovel. She was very hesitant to pet anything, but she was so excited to run around and point out the different animals and most of them had babies as well. Baby goats are just so stinking cute, but a baby alpaca is a close second.
We walked and shopped (Kate just had to have a pink saa paper parasol) and looked at stuff, heard some live music, tested out cars and drooled over ones that we'll never be able to afford, took our required photos with the new Big Tex (new because the old one burst into flames last year). The new one is kind of proportionally weird looking...and he's a bit darker. He's sort of Big Tex-Mex. Hmmm.
After watching the kiddie rides for a little bit, Kate decided she wanted to ride one and she chose the poor man's version of Disney's Dumbo ride first. This was probably a mistake because she sort of lost her bravery before the ride started and I spend the whole time trying to comfort her. So that was the only ride she did. Next time we will start with the little cars that just go around in a circle but don't fly. Although for the pocketbook, it works out much better that she got scared. It's not cheap to ride these things. Oh, and on a side note - it's not the best idea to eat a fried snickers just before getting on any of these rides. Trust me.
Vickie and I went up in the 500 foot observation tower, basically a space needle looking thing that slowly rotates. It was an awesome view! We hopped on right during sunset so we were treated to a beautiful Dallas skyline while we were up in the air
As I was finishing up shopping, the parade of lights went right by the pavilion we were standing in so Kate and Yiayia went out to watch. She wasn't too keen on the live band that came through because they were too loud.
There were a few things we didn't get to see, but it's a lot to cram into one day! I'm not sure if I'll make it back a second time this year - time is winding down, but I enjoyed my day at the fair very much. I mapped our day and it was over 5 miles of walking for me. Very nice indeed!
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