Meet me at the fair

Today was One Buck Wednesday at the county fair, so we took our food bank donations and rode the free shuttle up to the fair. Lacy had never been on a bus before, so she was excited to go. The bus driver gave all the kids lollipops and they absolutely loved the ride. With our donations, anyone over the age of 5 got in for just $1, and kids 5 and under were free. Our whole family got in for just $2!


Mostly, we went to see the animals. I didn't take a lot of pictures at the fair, but Leslie took a ton. I'm sure she'll blog about our adventure today sometime later (if she hasn't already beat me to the punch!).

Dave and Rose went off by themselves for a while while Les and I took the rest of the kids, all 7 of them (and 5 of them were 5 and under!). I think Dave got the better deal! Rose got to hold a baby pygmy goat when she was with Dave. She petted it and loved on it, and when she was getting a bit rough, Dave told her, "Gentle!" She was very good at following directions and petted the goat ever so softly. People around here were impressed that a girl so little could be so gentle! I must say, Rose has been incredibly cute lately. I love age two-- they are absolutely adorable at this age. I think so far this is my absolute favorite age-- they don't have a major attitude that they get around 3/3.5 yet!


Meanwhile, we took the rest of the kids to see the horses. They really enjoyed petting a real live horse and watching a bit of the horse shows. They only got yelled at once by strangers! I'd say that's pretty good with our rowdy bunch!

Eventually, we met up with Dave again, after viewing a few other animals and having the kids beg us for $5 pony rides (are you kidding me?). We started heading for the poultry and rabbit section of the fair. It took a looooong time to get the kids started, and we had a bathroom break in there. The bathrooms were right by the Mom's area, which is a really nice spot that has an indoor room with a rocking chair for nursing, a changing table and a couple toys, and an outdoor area with several benches, a sandbox, and a couple slides. It was well shaded and had great climbing trees to boot.

The Sheriff's station was right by there, so while we were giving everyone a bathroom break, some of the kids got retina scans and an ID card made up for them. All the big kids except Marilyn got one (from Lacy on up). We couldn't do Marilyn because we weren't about to have her retinas scanned without permission from her mom or Kurt (my brother, not Marilyn's dad but close enough). He kind of has a thing with authority figures, so we erred on the side of caution with this one. They turned out really cute, even though they never got a good scan of Lacy's retinas. You have to hold perfectly still for a fair amount of time, which is a challenge for any kid!

Finally, we made it to the poultry and rabbit area. The kids loved seeing all the bunnies, cats, guinea pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other small animals. They even got to pet a couple exotic looking chickens. Rose and Lacy both really liked it, and I liked dreaming about the animals I'm going to have on our commune some day. I really loved the black and white patterned chickens, but then again the red ones were absolutely beautiful and just screamed "FARM!!!" to me. I'm not sure what I'll choose!

We finished up with Dave taking Lacy to the restroom (again), and upon their return he surprised us with a couple elephant ears. Dave said, "It's just not a fair without elephant ears!" So we split the two between all of us and went to the last couple of exhibits.

There was a petting area that the kids went into, with goats and a few other animals. They enjoyed spending a little time with the animals. We also found a stall with a few zonkeys (aka zedonks, a type of zebroid produced from a daddy zebra and a momma donkey) in it. Those were fun to see! Very cute. Next to the zonkeys were the exotic animals, including a bearded dragon (Les and clan keep those as pets), pythons, anacondas, lynxes, bobcats, and other unusual animals.

At that point, we decided we'd had too much, and headed back to catch the return shuttle, and walked back to Leslie's house, at which point we mandated one hour outside play for all children. Dave helped finish up fixing Leslie's broken Suburban (which broke down last Friday-- fortunately this week was already mandated as vehicle free week for them), we ate breakfast for dinner, and Rose fell asleep by 8:30 while we were still at Leslie's. They got done with the car around 9 and we headed back home.

When we arrived home, we had a big package in our mailbox. It was a thank-you letter from Brad Wilcox! And a CD of his! Dave was absolutely on cloud 9. We knew he needed to be working with the youth at the dance festival, and part of the reason was because of his experience being Brother Wilcox's assistant for part of the time. Dave was really inspired by him, and treasures the special moments from this event. Getting this letter and CD was icing on the cake for him.