A Fair to Remember

It's that time of year! The Texas State Fair is in town! Apparently, that's a pretty big deal around these parts, so we decided to check it out. To be honest, we were all pretty psyched about it. Timothy and I were excited to see how Alex would react to the sights and the smells, and Alex was excited about the rides and the fair food, although he didn't know it yet.

We decided to go on Friday afternoon after Alex got up from his nap because this is the last weekend for the fair, and Saturday and Sunday promised to be much more crowded. We got there around four o'clock, and having eaten a light lunch to prepare for an afternoon of delicious fair fare, we were pretty much famished. It was a hunger that could only be satisfied by a world famous Fletcher's corny dog, which we ate in front of the world famous Big Tex.

There were lots of cool exhibits, like the dude that carves giant pumpkins.

More than anything, I was excited about taking Alex on the kiddie rides. He's always loved to be tossed around and spun, and I was pretty sure that he would get a kick out of roller coasters and such. They had a whole area dedicated to kids' stuff called "Kidway", although most of the rides still had minimum height requirements. A hasn't quite reached the 36" mark yet, so we went on the ones with a 30" minimum. And by "we", I mean Alex and I, of course, because a certain daddy that I won't name is a big scaredy cat.

Our first adventure was a caterpillar roller coaster with some little hills and turns. Alex seemed so tiny and fragile sitting in that seat next to me that I thought about having second thoughts for about a second, and then I thought better.

And the verdict...? Alex LOVED it. So much, in fact, that he threw a monster-sized hissyfit and kept hollering "more! more!" when I pulled him out of his seat and dragged him to the next ride. He got over it pretty fast when he saw that we were going to ride something else. This time, I decided to risk barfing on myself and my child by boarding this thing with pods that spin in little circles while the whole contraption spins in big circles.

A was very excited, that is until the thing started to gain some momentum and centrifugal force kicked in. I tried my hardest to hold the wheel as tight as possible to keep our pod from spinning, but by that point, he already had a death-grip on my leg and was holding his breath, causing his face to turn a lovely shade of aubergine. Case in point.

I panicked a little and immediately developed a course of action for an outcome that involved cookie-tossing. Fortunately, I didn't have to implement my plan because after the first revolution, his stomach caught up and he decided that it was one of the funnest things ever.

Again, the fun ride was followed by a not-so-fun hissyfit, until we were comfortably seated in the next ride. Another spinning one, although somewhat more tame than the one before.

He enjoyed it, but he wasn't quite as excited as he was on the other two. It simply wasn't wild enough for him. I mean, it didn't even elicit a hissyfit when we made him get off. Lame.

We left the Kidway and cruised the Midway, where we saw the giant ferris wheel, ate a giant turkey leg, and were sorely disappointed by the mini "fried banana split".

The next stop was the petting zoo, where we paid five bucks for about a dime's worth of seed so we could bribe the animals to let us pet them. Alex fed the giraffe...

...the camel...

...the goats...

...and the donkeys.

There were tons of animals there, although we didn't feed all of them. For example, we also saw a teeny baby goat, a mama cow and her calf, a zebra, and an ostrich. I'll be honest, I felt a little guilty with regards to the zebra because I couldn't stop picturing its skin on the floor of my living room.

One cannot leave a fair without having a funnel cake because...well, that's just a rule I have. So the three of us split one as dusk broke.

The other thing we had to do before we left was ride the giant ferris wheel. We split our car with another couple, who took this blurry family pic at the top of the world.

And then I took this pic of the fair from the top of the world.

It was 8 o'clock by this point and well past Alex's bedtime, so it was time to head home. As we walked past the stage where Jessica Simpson was scheduled to perform, Timothy noticed that the arm holding Alex had suddenly become incredibly warm and yes, moist. Oops, it seems that, in all the excitement of the previous four hours, we had forgotten to change Alex's diaper. Oh well, it certainly didn't spoil our fun night.

And the fun had only begun Friday night because this evening, the three of us attended a Halloween party thrown by one of Timothy's coworkers. That means that the next post will feature Alex's Halloween costume, and I know a few of you are curious about what it will be. Stay tuned!!