The State Fair!

Saturday morning, Dave told me that he wanted to take me somewhere, but it was a surprise. I begged him to tell me, but he would not relent. "That's not fair!" I exclaimed, and he smiled...and little did I know that he really wanted to answer me with "Yes it is!" :)

I figured it out by the time we left, and believe me, I was rather on the ecstatic side. Over the years, it has been difficult for me to convince anyone to take me to the fair. I'd get my family to take me, but after 30 minutes they'd be sick of it and want to leave already, regardless of the fact that they just paid $8 a person to get in, plus parking. Since then, I just haven't had the opportunity to go. When Dave and I got married, he said he'd like to take me but the first summer we were together, our budget was WAAAY too tight. This year I assumed that we wouldn't make it, either, but...surprise! Thanks Dave, I really appreciate you doing this! :)

As we walked into the fair, we went into a building which held the horticulture and floriculture exhibits. To our great regret, most of the fruits and veggies were in pretty bad shape (the fair had been going on for a good week by the time we came, and no amount of preservative could make that stuff look good anymore). Later on, we enjoyed the photography and fine arts areas of the fair, too. Maybe Dave or I will enter something next year.

One of the first things we saw were the bunnies! I'd forgotten that they had them at the fair. After a good amount of squealing, I finally pulled myself together enough to get my picture taken. The poor guys, though...it was too hot in there for them and their fluffy coats.

Dave says "Moooo!" to a cow...er, I mean....bull.

Piglets! This area was the most disgusting for me. Seeing all these huge pigs together, laying there on the ground covered in flies...it made me feel sort of horrible. But at the end there were piglets, so it was worth it.

Me with a HUGE bull. You can't really see how massive this guy really is unless you were there. He was so gentle, though--it surprised me. He just let little kids come right up to him and pet him and didn't flinch.

Dave gets up close to the sheep. (sorry I deleted the first picture, Dave...I know it was better).

This is one of the ugliest, most unnecessarily frilly pigeons I have EVER seen. Seriously, click on the picture to see the larger image. It's crazy.

We chilled at the fair for a couple of hours. I know Dave wanted for us to go on rides and to win stuff for me, and he wanted to splurge money on me that day because he is just that sweet, but I couldn't allow us to pay close to $4 per ride and game after we'd already spent the money to get in and park. Plus, we were pretty tired. We did buy $4 french fries, but that was the extent of our extravagant spending beyond admission. Okay, so it wouldn't have hurt to blow like $10 on rides or games, but it's okay...the games are rigged anyway.

Driving home after an awesome afternoon at the fair!

We got together that night with friends and played Settlers of Catan and had dinner and this weird peach cobbler I made. Heck, everyone ate it so how bad could it have been?

I had a wonderful day!