State Fair

Last Monday I grabbed the kids and a couple of Sophie's friends and we headed to Salem for the State Fair.  The girls were anxious to see if their cakes had earned them any ribbons and fame and the boys just wanted to eat fried stuff.  We lucked out as there was some promotion going on and all of the kids (even Max!) got in to the fair for free and all of the ride tickets were half off.

We went to the cakes first and the girls were disappointed to find out that none of them had earned a ribbon.  In fact, there were no ribbons awarded in the kids categories - lame.  It was still exciting to see their cakes on display and we'll have to find out why there were no ribbons before we enter again next year.

Max was able to meet several Oregon authors - we bought a book from this guy (William L. Sullivan) who writes some of my favorite hiking guides of Oregon.

 

Despite being free kids day, the fair was not very crowded in the morning.  All of the kids were able to hold pigeons and pet the rabbits and baby chicks.

We had a long discussion in the barn after watching a cow poop and then a sheep poop about how sheep manage to poop in perfectly round little circles.  Anyone?!

 The dairy barn was the best bargain - these cones are only $2.50 but all but one of the kids won a coupon for a free cone!

Each kid got to choose three rides and one game.  Max and Kate went on the swings.

 

Calvin really wanted to win one of these tacky pepper things.  Sadly, he did not manage to get a ring on the bottle.

Sophie went on that spinning ride which makes me nauseous just to look at it.

Max and Grace went on this thing which makes me want to cry (I do not do fair rides).  They were pretty excited when it started, but a little green at the end.  Granted we had just consumed a lunch of corn dogs, curly fries, sweet potato fries, hot dogs, fried ravioli and soba noodles.

Calvin was super excited about the bumper cars.

This pirate ride below was incredibly lame - and 9 tickets!?  Calvin was tickled to find he was tall enough to ride alone!

Sophie played the wack-a-mole and won this psycho decapitated sheep's head.   It is the Goodwill bag.  She was the only one to win a prize - fair prizes are rather lame considering the price of the tickets.

I can only handle the fair about every other year, but I must say this fair was rather nice.  Clean and not to packed and the weather was great.