A County Fair in the City

I grew up in the country, so I always wonder how much my kids will understand about animals and farming and country life, when they are growing up in the city. Maybe that's why I really tried to convince Tom to go to the Orange County Fair this year (he wanted to do more stuff around the house since we've been traveling so much recently). We went to the fair last year and had a great time (although I didn't remember last year's trip until we were AT the fair this year and things clicked in my head...mommy brain, don't ask).

Sarah made it a little easier to convince Tom when she gave us free tickets to the fair (thank you!)...so now we just had to pay for food and rides. And we were both so glad we went: the kids had a great time, the weather was cooler than normal, and we visited Friday afternoon and left as the big evening crowds were just starting to arrive.

The main hit was the animal petting area. Natalie and Konrad could have stayed there the whole four hours. They both ran around laughing at the animals, Konrad petting them with one finger (it looked like pointing, but it was petting), and Natalie just intent on finding someone new to say hi too. Tom bought food to feed the animals, and all the kids enjoyed feeding the goats kibble. But the sign in front of the baby zebra and baby camel said small children shouldn't feed them. Since Natalie can't read yet, that didn't stop her from picking up a piece of straw on the floor and trying to feed it to the zebra. I told her a couple of times that the zebra wouldn't eat the straw, but she stayed pretty intent on feeding him straw, signing "zebra" and "camel" A LOT (those are hard words for her to say).

The other hit were the Little Tikes cars and John Deer tractors they had for the kids to ride for free. At one point, Konrad was seriously intent on staying in one of those cars for the rest of the four hours. He definitely knows how to show what he wants!

After the stretchy mirrors and picture boards, it was time for the kiddie rides. Lukas loves the super long slides, but we tried to get him out of his comfort zone a little and convinced him to go on a roller coaster...it went about 2 mph, so I knew he wouldn't be scared, if he would just get on it! We did convince him to ride, and then added Natalie to the seat next to him. Lukas loved it, but Natalie didn't :( .

A similar scenario played out with Konrad. I was going to ride with him and Natalie in a ride, but he didn't want to sit next to me in the strap...he wanted to hold on to me in my arms. I knew the operator wouldn't let us go flying in the air unless he was in the strap. I finally got him to sit, and then he love, love, loved the ride (and Natalie liked this one too).

What a great time!