State Fair 2010

I realize that it's been a month since we attended the Great MN State Get Together but better late than never, right?!  We braved going on what turned out to be a record setting day for attendance (234,384 people) and we did it with 2 strollers and 3 kids under the age of 2-1/2!  Crazy you say??  Maybe, but it was worth it!  The weather was picture perfect and the kids were angels!  We all piled into Robin and Kyle's new minivan and headed up at morning nap time to take advantage of some quiet time.  All 3 boys napped on the way up and were ready to go when we arrived.  If you're keeping count that's 4 adults, 3 carseats, 2 strollers....and a partridge in a pear tree:-)  In years past we have arrived at the Fair with no plan and wandered around which has lead to some tense moments when we realize that the place we are headed for is 7 blocks away....in the direction we just came from.  Not so this year!  I put my natural nerdiness to work and printed a Fair map and highlighted all the locations we wanted to hit up ahead of time so we went in with a planned route!  MUCH better and added bonus, we got to sample every food-on-a-stick our little heart's desired....and at a much cheaper cost since our planned route included stops at food vendors who offered coupons!  Nerdiness and thriftiness in perfect harmony:-)  One of the highlights of the Fair for the little boys was the John Deere display where we let them loose to run around the tractors and they decided to try their hand at landscaping which I'm sure the Fair people were really grateful for:

"Work fast Josiah, we MUST move all this mulch before they notice!"

"Got it Miles, I'm right behind you!"

Another highlight was the "Little Farm Hands" exhibit where they got to don aprons and go through a series of  stands that shows where the food we eat comes from.  They were a little young to understand the concept but had fun anyway:

We're all set with official aprons and buckets!

Josiah and Mommy in the "Little Farm Hands" line

"What do you mean put the seeds in the dirt, I'm just going to eat them instead!"

Tractor racing!

While the big boys were running around, little Henry observed from the stroller and planned out the food he'd like to sample next year when his teeth have all arrived:

The little Bug:-)

All in all we had a great day and are looking forward to our trip up next year!!