Small Town Country Fair

We spent Labor Day weekend back home with my mom.  Labor Day weekend is the annual fair and rodeo in my hometown.

The fair brings back so many memories for me.  Each labor day weekend while I was growing up, we would spend all weekend (except Sunday) at the fairgrounds.  I was in 4-H and we entered lots of things into the fair.  I remember usually entering 25-30 things.  We would sew, can and create all summer so that we would have items to enter in the fair.  I always hoped for lots of blue ribbons--and usually got them.  Each ribbon earned me a few dollars, so at the end of fair weekend I was excited to get my money.  In hindsight, I'm sure it didn't even cover the cost of the items I made to enter in the fair, but my parents were generous and let me keep my ribbon money.

During fair weekend, we had exhibitor's passes, so we would come and go all weekend for free.  I usually had responsibilities at the fair--working in the the 4-H food booth, doing 4-H demonstrations and helping in the elephant ears booth, which our church was in charge of each year.  All of those things were fun and exciting--we all loved being at the fair.  One day we would buy the ride bracelet and go on unlimited rides.  We would meet up with friends--some of whom we hadn't seen all summer--and run around the fair together, free to do what we wanted.  As teenagers, we scoped out the cute boys and compared new fall fashions.  It was definitely the place to be.

As an adult, I have gone to the fair a few times.  For much of my adult life, I lived on the East Coast, so coming back for labor day weekend, especially once school had started for my kids, wasn't really an option.  Now that we live closer, we've gone a couple of times.  It is always so fun for me to go back and relive my childhood memories.  Some things about the fair have changed, but most of it is still the same.  It still has that wonderful small town county fair feel.  And I love it!

I took Rachel, William and Kate and went to my mom's house a day before David, Sarah and Ben.  David had work responsibilities, Sarah had to play in the pep band at a football game, and Ben had football practice, so they came over the next day.

On the day we arrived, we went right to the fair with my mom.  We had fun going to the shows and walking around the barns and buildings together.  The next day, our family went back, this time to enjoy the rides.

This was really the first time William had gone on any rides, and he quickly turned into a ride junkie, begging to go on each ride again and again!

 Kate got selected to be a volunteer in a magic show.  She always loves being on stage!

 I love the old Pioneer Village.

 Kate and William in the old school house.

 You can still buy penny candy at the General Store.

The kids even got to pan for gold.  After they got some gold, they took it to be weighed at one of the cabins and then got to trade their "money" for gold (butterscotch) candy. 

 We had a great view of the rodeo stands from the top of the Ferris wheel.

Later that night, William went home with Grandma and we let the other kids keep riding rides while David and I went on a date to the rodeo.  Even though I went to the fair every year as a kid, I don't remember ever going to the rodeo (although I may have gone once as a small child).  It is a pretty big scale rodeo for such a small town and they had lots of big names in the rodeo world.  It was fun, and we had a good time on our date. 

After we left the rodeo, we weren't quite ready for our date to be over, so we headed back to the fairgrounds to warm up in one of the buildings and get some yummy fair food.  We hadn't been out of the grandstands for more than a minute or two when we ran into our children (yes, it is a small fair).  We had been checking in with Sarah regularly during the rodeo and all seemed to be going fine.  They had attended a hypnotist show and Sarah got chosen to go up on stage and get hypnotized.  Rachel videoed the whole thing and it was hilarious!  (As a disclaimer, I had attended the show the previous afternoon and knew it was pretty harmless, so I gave her permission to try to get on stage.)  Afterwards they got some food and rode some rides.  It seemed like everything was going well.

When we ran into them, it was obvious that things were not going well.  Ben was crying, Sarah was yelling at everyone, and Kate and Rachel were sort of freaking out.  Evidently, Ben had gotten sick from going on spinny rides after eating ice cream (surprise, surprise).  And Rachel and Kate had gotten separated from Ben and Sarah after going on a ride.  So Sarah--who later claimed she still was pretty foggy and not quite woken up from being hypnotized--made everyone sit down under a tree for a long time and wait and do nothing.  The other kids were really mad, and Ben was crying because he was so sick, so they eventually went into a building to get warm, which is when we met up with them.  The big question:  Why did Sarah not call or text when things started to go bad?  Evidently, she didn't want to bother us and wanted to show us that she could "handle it."  Hmmm?... Why does she have a cell phone?  I am still wondering that. 

Our fun date quickly came to a crashing halt as we had to deal with four children who were overtired and freaking out.  It was not a pretty site getting out of the fair that night.   I'm just keeping things real here on my blog.

And it had seemed like such a great idea...

The next morning, everyone was in better spirits as we headed out to watch the parade.  It was a brisk morning, so David and Sarah brought everyone back some hot chocolate. 

The parade was the same as usual--lots of horses, political candidates, cool cars, a few bands, big trucks and candy.  Lots of fun.

Later that afternoon we helped my mom with some jobs around her house.  One of them was to change out all the water in her water storage kept in the crawl space under her house.  It was a big job, but one that went fast with all of us helping.