Life as I know it...: Second day at fair....

Well as promised I took the kids to the fair again yesterday - but not for rides, just games and fair food! My children started bugging me about going at about 7:00 a.m. and wouldn't you know it, nothing at the fair opens until 11:00 and the games (and rides) don't start until 1:00 p.m.!!! At 11:00 I told them to get in the vehicle so we could go to a pancake breakfast - which actaully ended at 11:00, but it was at my friends husband's business, so they gave us what was left of the pancakes and sausage! We ate there and then headed down to the fairgrounds were we would check out the trade show, school art, exhibit hall, etc. We found the school art first and found a picture Grace had made, but unfortunately Mark's teacher didn't enter any of their work. We wandered around the trade show (not that there was much to see there this year), and Mark saw a table full of watches. We stopped (really just to kill time) and he started trying on different watches...very pretty watches! He really, really wanted this green one with sparkles all around the face - and even though the lady selling it told him it was a girls watch, he still really wanted it! He ended up getting a different green one (still a girls), but it didn't have sparkles! It has hands, instead of digital, so I wasn't sure how he would do with it, but he knew exactly how to tell when it was 1:00 p.m.!!! We wandered over to the exhibit hall and the kids got to see some of the enteries - and I told them that starting next year, they would all be entering some things. Finally Mark alerted me that it was now time for the games and we wandered down to the midway. My kids each brought their wallets, full of money (and I brought mine full too) and we started off with Will playing the balloon popping game. I don't think he popped any - or had any understanding that the $5.00 of his allowance he just paid to do that will never see the inside of his wallet again!! Grace played too (twice) and popped almost every balloon!! She won a lovely little stuffed puppy...LOL! They all played the hammer game and won some fantastic squeaky giant hammers....LOL again! Grace and Will fished for some sharks and got some little stuffed dogs and all the while Mark was holding out (and holding onto his money) for the game where you could win the BIG prize!! He decided to try his luck at the game where you throw the balls into the bucket (which seems like an easy concept, but really isn't that easy). The carny was really nice and gave him three practice shots. He then asked Mark if he wanted to play the $5.00 game or the $10.00 game - that's the one where you get to win a BIG prize! Of course Mark said he would spend the $10.00, so he gave him the money and started throwing balls. He got two out of three balls in, and the carny said: "what prize would you like, you can pick ANYTHING we have!!"...well, Mark was over the moon with this fact! He picked the biggest stuffed dog imaginable! I thought that seemed pretty easy, so I asked Grace if she wanted to try for one of the big pink stuffies and of course she said yes! She paid $10.00 and started throwing her balls - not getting any of them in. The carny then said to her: "Thanks for playing" and walked away! I asked him about the prize (I thought that because you pay them ten dollars, you get something) and he said that you have to get the balls in...those are the rules! Grace looked like she was ready to cry, but I told her that is how games work and figured that is a good lesson in life, so we moved on to the shark fishing again!! She paid another $5.00 and traded her little puppy in for a bigger prize - not that it was that much bigger though!

After we had spent almost all of the kids allowance - and all of mine - on games, we got some cotton candy, lemonade and mini donuts (and I had to borrow $5.00 from Grace to buy the donuts)! Will threw a lovely fit in middle of the midway because he wanted to go on the rides again and I had had enough of the fair for another year so I told them we were done and leaving, and it was only 2:30 p.m.!!

Greg stays in our RV across the road from the fairgrounds, along with a whole lot of other people, and the boys want to stay over there tonight (Saturday) so they can see the fireworks....but we'll see if they change their minds when they find out they can't go on any rides or play any games!!

I will not even entertain the thought of going to the grounds today because Saturday is always the busiest day of the fair and I would not be able to handle it for a third day in a row!!

I look so forward to the fair each year, but once I have had my fill of it, then I look so forward to it being over for another year!!

SJ