All’s Fair…

We went to the Great New York State Fair our first summer in New York and were sufficiently overwhelmed by it that we've skipped it the past two years.  Not wanting to cheat ourselves out of a fun family outing that’s practically in our backyard, though, we decided we needed to toughen up and try again.  So, with an evening to spare and discount tickets from Bryan's work, off to the fair we went.

Despite our hesitations, there were definitely some FAIR-ly fun things to do and the girls generally enjoyed the evening.  (At least until it started getting dark, the crowds thickened ahead of the REO Speedwagon Concert, the midway lights started flashing, and they realized they don’t like cotton candy afterall.  At that point there may or may not have been some discussion about selling all of them to one of the traveling shows and using the profits to buy hot beef sundaes and donut burgers…)

In any event, here are some of the highlights of the adventure:

 

 

Katie loved the animals, showing her enthusiasm by waving at all of them.  She especially liked the baby piggies.

Our very own dairy princess and her apparently very-concerned cow.

The Rainbow Bar, where you can get chocolate milk for $.25, was still our favorite part.  I think our family drank 10 cups of it!  (As a bonus, filling up on milk sure makes all that other fair food seem less tempting!  Our only other purchase was the small bag of ill-fated cotton candy.)

got milk?

The whole dairy building was a blast.  Here are all three of the girls taking a turn on the free moo merry-go-round.

Here's a video of the girls on the cows.  We especially appreciated Katie's oh-so-serious expression throughout.

And finally...

Checking out the much anticipated butter sculpture.  This year's theme?  School lunch ladies.  There's so much that could be said about that, but instead I'll just point out how intrigued the girls were to see THAT MUCH butter. 

Yellow Clothes One Year Later

 

Today as I was rummaging through boxes of kiddy clothes I came across the pretty yellow outfit my parents gave Amber last year when she turned 2 a few weeks before Katie was born. Just for kicks I thought I’d try it on Katie, even though she’s only about 15 months old. Surprise surprise, it fits her as well as it fit Amber last year, and it’s still one of the cutest combinations I’ve ever seen.

For fun, here are some side-by-side pictures of both girls “having a ball” wearing yellow.

Can you believe how big Katie has gotten?

Can you believe how little Amber was just last summer?

Me neither.

You Know You Stayed Out Too Late at a Relief Society Activity When...

Thursday night our church held its annual summer salad supper for all the relief society sisters.  This is one of our ward's great traditions and is a blast every single year.  After gorging ourselves on pasta salads, green salads, jello salads, dessert salads, and any other kind of salad you can imagine (I don't even know where to begin categorizing the amazing apple-and-snickers salad someone brought) we ended up chatting.  And chatting.  And chatting.  It was definitely past my (probably ridiculously early by most standards) bedtime by the time I got home.

Now, it's not entirely the activity's fault.  Amber had a rough night with yet another upset tummy too, so that contributed.  Still, you know you stayed out too late at a Relief Society activity when the next afternoon you're unloading the kids in a pet store parking lot feeling vaguely drugged and only mostly coherent.  The jumble of toddler jargon is that much more difficult to decipher and you're feeling pretty good that the van is parked between two yellow lines, rather than right on top of them...although it is a little crooked.   You're even patting yourself on the back that you remembered to throw a pair of shoes in the front seat for the one-year-old, so she'll be able to walk while you carry stuff.

And then as you open the side door all ready to put those shoes on your little girl, you make the startling realization that not only does your child not have shoes on, she doesn't have pants on either.

Or a diaper.  

Yep.  And that's when you know for sure that you stayed out too late at a Relief Society activity.  :)