Gavin was gone all day today. He left at 8:00 am for school then we picked him up at 12:30. We had lunch at McDonald’s because Parker earned a book on his Pre-School World game. (We reward the kids for doing well on their educational games. By the way, Gavin is playing a game for 6-8 year olds. He says he’s not in first grade anymore because the game talks about second grade all the time. Gavin is keeping up just fine!) Anyway, after McDonald’s we hit the County Fair. We got home around 6:00 pm. Gavin had not been home that whole time! He’s having a great summer!
Today was $2 Tuesday at the Fair. That’s how we justified paying $20 for close parking. The cheapest parking was $8 and it was 10 miles away. They give everyone bread crumbs so you can find your way back to your car. Since Gavin just turned 6 years old we had to pay for him. So it cost us $26 to get in. We paid $10 for two strawberry lemonades in nice reusable plastic cups. The lemonade was too sweet and syrupy and kind of nasty in my opinion. But the kids loved it and it quenched their thirst so it was worth it. We also paid $6 in tickets for a ride. So for $42 we had the time of our lives in four hours at the Fair. I thought that was pretty good.
We saw part of a magician show but the boys were not interested. So we watched an "actress" practicing a dog show. The next show wouldn't start for two more hours so we moved on. We saw the animals, which the kids thought was pretty cool to see live animals. We saw brand new 8 day old piglets eating. Gavin was asking if the mom pig needed to wake up to feed the babies. He couldn’t accept that really all she needed to do was lay there. Twin calves were born on Gavin’s birthday. That was kind of cool. The boys loved letting the goats smell their hands. Gwen seemed pretty fascinated by all the animals. But she was trapped in her stroller.
There were a couple of young ladies with a bucket of water balloons. They asked if the boys wanted to play with the water balloons. It was free. The boys tried to toss water balloons to each other. Parker threw overhand and too short so the balloons would break on the grass. Then he would throw underhand like the girl showed him but he still couldn’t get it close enough to Gavin. I think the boys went through at least 10 water balloons. They had fun.

The girls gave them prizes. Gavin chose a bendable cow and Gwen got a bendable pig. Parker chose a 3D plastic puzzle. It came with instructions, which is good because I don’t think we can figure out how to get it back together without instructions.

We walked by this little track and saw that a pig race would start in 20 minutes.

So we sat down in the grass to watch. There were plenty of seats in the bleachers but with Gwen in a stroller we decided to sit in the grass instead. We had fabulous seats. We were right at the PVC pipe fence and could see the entire track.
Gwen was getting really bored sitting in her stroller so I got into my Mom purse for some snacks. I used to look in awe at other moms who always seemed to have exactly what their kids needed in any given situation. Now I am one of those moms! Thank heavens I have Type 1 diabetes or I would never carry a glucometer and snacks. These items are the reason why I finally gave in and bought a purse some time after Parker was born! I had a smaller glucometer that couldn't hold my snacks as easily and I was tired of carrying it all in my hands so I became a woman and bought a purse! My purse seriously is a bottomless bag of tricks that has been extremely useful lately.

Gwen was enjoying the heck out of a bag of Cheez-Its. (That was actually from the diaper bag.) At some point she decided she had had her fill and that Dad was hungry. So she started feeding him. It was the cutest thing. She was so proud of herself too. So we got pictures of her feeding him crackers.
The pig races were fun to watch.

This is a great shot of the pigs mid hurdle. I thought the pigs in the back were the smartest. The front pigs would jump over the hurdle and knock it down so the back pigs would just run over it and not have to jump. Of course they still lost but I don't think anyone really cared about which pig won. For the last race the MC chose four kids. One from each section around the track. The kids each chose a pig for their section to cheer for. Our section's pig won!
We looked in the buildings at all the projects and displays. We saw some really cool science fair projects from kids in the school district. I was disappointed that the art was interspersed with all the other projects and displays. I loved the art building at the Salt Lake County Fair. It was an entire building dedicated to every form of art. As a family we spent most of our time in that building. I was always in awe of all the incredible art. Granted there was some lame art too but for the most part it was very inspiring. Today I saw some scrapbooking layouts that won ribbons. I should enter some of my layouts because mine are at least that good if not better!
There was a building with model trains in it. The boys would have thought it was cool except it was so crowded with pushy shovey people. After the trains we made our way back across the fairgrounds to the dog show and almost immediately regretted it.

The show was really slow and not at all entertaining! Gavin seemed to be actively engaged in the show. Parker was bored out of his mind. Although he looks like he's interested in this picture. The second the show was over we headed for the rides. The boys had been waiting all day for that part.
Poor boys have parents with ADD or something. We told them in the beginning we would look at the animals and then go on rides. We just kept finding more things to look at after the animals. On the way to the rides we stopped to watch some percussion dancers. Their dance term. It was a mix of tap, clogging, and some other fast stepping clicking dance. Parker was less than amused. He kept pulling on me so I told Heath we better go quick. I felt rude for walking away in the middle of the dance show but my 3 year old was about to lose it! Then of course we ran into the third family from our ward we saw today. They talked to us for much longer than the boys had patience for.
We finally walked among the rides. The boys were told to find their favorite and that would be the one and only ride they would take. It didn't matter if they didn't agree. Each boy would only ride one ride. We're cheap parents. The rides all required at least 3 tickets. Each ticket was one dollar. The boys found a Cars track and both really wanted to do that. So Heath paid $6 in tickets for the boys to ride. As we were leaving Gavin reached into his pocket and handed Heath a ticket he had gotten from school! We could have saved a buck! Ha ha! We're not that cheap that we were upset I just thought it was ironic.

Parker really wanted to ride in the blue car that was the first in line but another boy got there first. There were enough kids that each car had a passenger so Parker had to climb in with Gavin. I thought he would be upset about the quick changes in his plans but he didn't care.

They both had a blast. Gavin said he tried to steer along the track as if he was really driving. When the ride was over Parker ran over to us exclaiming with all his might, "That was AWESOME!"
The weather was perfect. You couldn't have ordered a better day for the Fair. It wasn't overly crowded either. It was perfect. Heath and I kept quoting lines from Bill Engvall's comedy routine about county fairs. We all had tons of fun. I'm so glad Heath took today as a vacation day too. His parents went home yesterday afternoon and we miss them already. But today was a lot of fun with just our little family. By the way Dawn, Parker keeps praying that Heavenly Father keeps Grandma and Grandpa healthy and strong! He thought it all up himself. I thought that was sweet enough to tell you.