It's Fair Time Again!

It's that time of year when the kids go back to school, the leaves begin to change colors, and the Washington State Fair takes over our town for several weeks! Since going to this fair is not my favorite thing to do, I opted out many years ago and have happily let Ron take the older kids for a morning or afternoon while I have stayed behind with a napping baby or toddler.  After being able to do this for several years, Ron informed me that he would not be taking the kids this year on the one Saturday that we were available to go (after back-to-back camping trips and my trip to Utah the first three weekends in September).  After thinking it over for a few days, I realized that I just needed to suck it up and decided to take all four kids by myself on Friday evening after everyone got home from school.  After leaving our house around 4:30, I was so pleased to find a free parking spot less than two blocks away from the fair (it helps to be a local who knows where to look)!  The five of us headed into the fairgrounds by 5 p.m. and ended up spending a really fun and enjoyable 3.5 hours there.  Lia was a huge help pushing Emmett around in the stroller most of the evening and the four kids really had a great time riding rides, looking at animals, and eating fair food with me.  Emmett was totally agreeable and pleasant and was just as easy to manage as the older three kiddos.  I was pleasantly surprised by how fun the entire evening turned out and laughed when we pulled up for dinner at our house at 8:30 p.m. (after picking up Dominoes pizza on the way home) after Ron had already fallen asleep in bed! Just call us fair party animals!

First stop after entering the fairgrounds and purchasing our ride tickets was OF COURSE the giant, yellow slide that we all love to go on!  However, since the ride cost 9 whoppin' tickets and I had four kids with me for the first time ever, I asked Lia to take Emmett down on her lap instead of going myself.  Logan was the first one to come down!

Ella was the second one down!  Normally a total daredevil, Ella was not happy with how scary and fast this slide was which was a a total shock to me.

Lia came down last with a happy Emmett who was grinning from ear to ear.  He immediately finished and asked to go again.

Since I had already spent $45 dollars on ride tickets, the kids were only allowed to do one more ride before we used all of them up (the downside of bringing four kids to the fair).  We chose to ride the carousel since we knew Emmett would love it so much.  Here is Ella ready to go!

Logan and Lia side by side.

Cute Emmy waiting to go.  He had so much fun on this ride that I really felt bad that we weren't going on any more.  But since rides are so overpriced and Sillyville is my least favorite area of the fairgrounds, it was not a touch decision to call it quits after our second ride and move on to the next activity of the night.

We then wandered over to the free, face painting area that we have loved and enjoyed for so many years.  Thanks to Covid, they were only offering "arm painting" which we thought was just as cool as face painting.  Here is Ella getting a horse painted on her arm.

Logan chose a cool looking dragon for his arm.

Emmett, of course, had to have a choo choo to get painted on his arm.

And although Lia is no longer twelve years old, we basically lied to get her in one last year as there is no way she will pass as a 12-year old next year!

All four kids proudly showing off their "arm art."

We then walked over to another one of our favorite areas of the fair--the free and fabulous Farm at Sillyville with the tractor tracks.  Here is Ella posing with a giant-sized pear!

The kids were given an old-school, metal lunch box and asked to travel to different buildings on the farm to gather farm-grown produce to take to a "store" at the end before receiving a treat.  It was a neat way to teach children the process of how food goes from the farms to shore shelves.  Here are all of the kids picking apples off of a tree.

Emmett turning in his eggs after collecting them from a hen house.

Ella pretending to walk out of the hen house on the ramp.

Emmett driving a miniature sized, combine harvester in the wheat building.

The kids playing on the tractors after finishing with the farm-to-store, food experience.

Lia was kind enough to help Emmett go around the race course on his pedal tractor.

Ella stopping for a picture under the water fountain tunnel.

We also stretched the truth a bit and said that Logan was still 8-years old so that he could cruise around on a tractor one more time.  After seeing how hard it was for him to pedal his tractor with his long legs, we realized why the age limit only goes up to 8 years.

After visiting the Farm at Sillyville, we pushed Emmett through several barns so that he could enjoy seeing some of the animals like the sheep, goats, cows, horses, chickens and ducks, bunnies, and pigs.  He was fascinated by all of them.  Here are the three younger kids and me posing in front of a life size statue of a draft horse in the barn full of these huge animals!

Ella pretending to walk the horse away.

The stunning sunset that appeared before we left the fair.

After enjoying the rides and the animals, we each got an ice cream treat and shared a giant, elephant ear scone before heading on home.  No fair experience is complete without some delicious ice cream!