the oldest county fair

yesterday we took our double stroller for its first outing - the county fair! apparently, this is the oldest county fair in the state at 167 years. we had never been before and thought that it might be more manageable than the state fair next month. as an extra incentive to check it out, one of our neighbors called in the morning to say that they had tickets and a parking pass that they weren't going to be able to use and offered them up to us. how can you say no to a free trip to the fair?!

we decided to wait and go after nap time so that we wouldn't have to rush. madelyn was pretty excited to be going to fair. not that she knew what a fair was, but the idea of somewhere new was exciting enough. once she saw the tents she thought that it was the circus and got even more excited.

i would say that we had a nice time. it wasn't hot (in fact the high for the day was only 70 and i don't think that the sun ever got to shine through all the clouds) and madelyn really enjoyed it. mason slept through the entire trip.

madelyn got to see lots of farm animals - cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, roosters, ducks, goats - and sharks. sharks were sort of a random addition to the fair, but madelyn liked seeing all four of them in their trailer tank. we went through all of the animal areas twice at madelyn's request. i think that she liked hearing them all make their noises.

we did take in a juggling show taking place in the children's tent. madelyn has been pretty interested in juggling and even tells me that she is juggling sometimes so we thought that she might enjoy it. she paid attention to the whole show - about one hour. she was really excited when one of the volunteers from the audience offered her their balloon animal (a koala) on the way back to their seat. amazingly she still hasn't popped it. not that she hasn't tested it by twisting, squeezing, and hugging.

(and, yes, we started in short sleeves - it is summer after all - but it was just too cold with the wind and we put on our jackets and fleece. in july!) love.