40. Go to the State Fair

Last Thursday we were able to mark off another activity on our Summer Fun list.  We packed the kids into the car and headed two hours west to the little town of Sedalia, Missouri for the Missouri State Fair.  The good news for us was that there weren't many people there.  The bad news for us was the reason why there weren't many people there....it was REALLY hot.  It felt like our heat wave came back with a vengeance on that particular day. Despite the heat, we all had a fun time.

We entered the fairgrounds and one of the first things we saw was this vendor selling some unique pottery.  He was kind enough to give us a demonstration. Later we came back for a cool pitcher.

We got to the fair just after noon, so the next thing we did was find some lunch. After that we just had to have the "old time photo" of the kids.

While we were waiting for the photo, the kids cooled off with some lemonade, but not just any lemonade, a lemonade "shakeup". What is a shakeup you ask? Well, they put the ice and lemonade in a cup and shake it up. Apparently this is a very important step in some parts of the United States (or so I was told by the shake-er up-er).

After that we made our way towards another part of the fair grounds where we wandered through the 4H Building, the "Varied Industries" building (aka: people selling all kinds of stuff you don't need), and the Conservation Building. The kids enjoyed the conservation building because there were lots of snakes, bugs and fish to be seen.

 (It was also an excellent spot for bar swinging.)

We made our way over to the Poultry and Rabbits Building hoping to see all different kinds of chickens, and see what kinds we may want to add to our flock later on.  Sadly, we discovered the chickens were there last week, and this week the rabbits were there....LOTS of rabbits (but they were cute, too).

 (Can you guys tell the size of this rabbit from the photo?  He was huge, I mean giant size! I didn't see what kind of rabbit it was, but it was the biggest one I've ever seen.)

From there we went into the Children's Barnyard and saw all kinds of animals.

After that we sat down to watch the Paul Bunyan Lumberjack Show.

Everybody watching the show got to pick up a wood chip if they wanted and have the lumberjacks sign it.  Grant and Johanna thought that was pretty cool.

Johanna saw this and thought it would be fun to be a boy.

 After the show, we made our way over to the rides. This was the part Grant had been waiting for all day.

There was hardly anyone there, and no line for anything because it was so hot.  There was even a ride (similar to the "strawberry ride" you will see me and the girls pictured in below, and yes, that one was hot, too) that the ride operator recommended not going on because it was too hot inside the cars. Despite the heat, $20 worth of tickets got each child two rides (those tickets go fast when you have three kids).

Grant and Johanna also got to play a game where they threw darts at balloons.  Johanna did awesome!  We were all really surprised.  She hit a balloon on every throw but one, and even managed to pop two balloons on one throw.  Her and Grant got to pick out a prize, and Julia even got one, too.

We stopped for another lemonade on our way to the Dairy Barns, Cattle Barns, Horse Barn and Dairy Center.

The kids had a lot of fun "milking" this cow in the dairy barn.

We stopped in at the ice cream shop which is where we saw the cow sculpture made of butter, and Johanna picked up this cool visor.

Our last stop on the way out of the fairgrounds was the Coliseum where we watched this group of young-uns herd a calf into a pen.

Yeah. It was hot in there. No air conditioning.

We made our way out of the fairgrounds around 6:30 pm, as we listened to the sounds of The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band warming up for their 7:30 concert. In the days of long ago before children, Cory and I would have stayed for this concert.

After stopping to eat at a favorite restaurant on the way home, we tucked the kids into their beds after a long day of sun, animals, rides and all kinds of state fair fun.