This summer, the children both participated in a reading program wherein, if they read ten books, they got a free ticket to the state fair. Talk about easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Not only did they get a free entrance ticket, they got a free carnival ride, a free drink, and a bookmark. Such a deal! We love going to the fair anyway, so a trip to Salt Lake was this week's field trip Friday activity.
Upon arrival, about three minutes inside the gate, there was a Marines booth with a pull-up challenge. You could get prizes for doing a certain number of pull-ups, and both Brandt and Blythe encouraged Kent to give it a go. He does pull-ups in the basement regularly, and while he was sure he couldn't break the record of 26 posted on the white board, he knew he could do quite a few. He did a total of 16, and for his efforts won a lanyard (15 pull-ups) and a pencil for each child (1 pull-up per pencil, but they gave us two so there wouldn't be fighting; they understand about fighting in the Marines). Kent proudly wore the lanyard around his neck the rest of the day.
About a minute and a half after we passed through the gates, Blythe said, "Mom! Mom! Mom! When can we go on the ride? Can we go now? Can we go on the ride now?" While I didn't think we needed to go on the ride immediately, she did, so we did. Brandt doesn't really like carnival rides (he totally takes after Kent in this respect), but he agreed to go on the ferris wheel, something we could all do together and that wasn't too spin-y or scary. There was a wonderful view of the fair grounds and the city to the east, and they stopped us right at the top so we could see everything.
View to east.
View to west.
Leaning over the side.
Kent is pointing to the Caution warning on the side of the door that says,
"Don't lean over the edge."
There are picture panels like this one all over the fair grounds.
The children wanted their picture is almost every one.
One of our favorite parts of the fair every year is the livestock. This year, we were somewhat disappointed in the animal showing. There were not that many animals. There were no baby pigs, more than half the pens and stalls were empty in the cow, sheep, goat, and pig barns, and there were no chickens. We did watch a session of cow competition, but it was hard for us to really know what the judge was looking for. Funny to see people trying to handle huge cows though. When I large animal gets an idea into its head, it can become very difficult to control.
Brandt and Blythe were able to put this cow.
There was teenage girl sitting with the cow, in fact, she was reclining right against the side of the cow,
like you would sit against a couch.
Both cow and girl seemed quite content.
I'm not sure why Brandt is showing the goat his belly.
Another fair stop is the pony ride. The man who runs the pony ride is the brother of our used to be next door neighbor Luella Hall. He's very pleasant and always nice to chat with, and the kids both like the pony ride, even though they only go around and around and around.
Eggs.
We took this picture to share with Cammie who has chickens and didn't know you could enter eggs for competition.
This is a beehive.
We had a very interesting chat with the man who was there,
and we watched the bees doing their avian thing.
Another can't miss activity at the fair is the farm for young people. The kids gather agricultural products--milk cartons, eggs, veg, bits of wool--in baskets as they move through a farm, then get a treat at the end. They do lots of "work" and are rewarded with a bag of chips.
Milking
"Planting" a wooden "seed" in the sand.
It won't grow.
Tractor riding
Our little farmers
I can't decide which of these pictures to post. You can see Kent better in the top one, but Blythe isn't looking. In the bottom one, Kent is blocked somewhat by my hair, but Blythe is looking. This is at the top of the big yellow slide, probably my favorite thing at the fair. You have to climb 110 stairs to get to the top, where you have a wonderful view of the fairgrounds. You go down the wavy slide on large gunny sacks and come to a stop on carpet at the bottom. We raced down and Blythe and I won (I think). The kids love it too, so while Kent slide down once, Brandt, Blythe, and I climbed up again for a second ride.
Kent took these from the bottom as we slide down.
We raced again, and while Brandt was ahead most of the time,
Blythe and I caught him just at the end and we tied.
Before we left, we walked through a remote control plane exhibit, saw the large fruit and veg, as well as the canned and baked goods, the sewn items, and the photographs. We listened to a musical group performing, and saw a cowboy on stilts performing rope tricks. Fortunately for us, the fair wasn't too busy, so we didn't feel like we were fighting through throngs of people. We had a great time at the fair for a our Friday field trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment