Fair Fun!

It's fair week here in our county, and so far it's been a great weather week for walking around and eating fried foods! (Some years, fair week ends up being somewhat of a soggy, miserable mess.)

Ryan and I went for our first round of fair fun on Monday night, because he had signed up to work the booth for his work. We decided to eat dinner at home (to save money and calories) and then walk around the fair, get a dessert treat, and then I could explore at my leisure while he worked his shift.

We didn't have quite enough time to look around as much as we wanted...it turns out when you're hunting for specific 4H projects, it takes longer than you might think to read all the names on every single entry.

We were trying to find our niece's hog. Ever tried to find one particular hog in a sea of swine? It's apparently completely impossible.

Because I didn't grow up in the hog barn, I didn't know that when kids get bored in there, they play practical jokes on people. I also didn't know that there was a bored girl in the aisle I walked down, looking for the hiding hog. She didn't know I hate practical jokes with e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. in my being. And that was how I ended up with a golf ball sized fake spider floating in front of my face before landing on my chest.

She thought it was hilarious. I forgot to notify my face about the whole hilarity thing.

We got out of that barn in pretty short order, never finding the correct pig, but snapping a picture of this sleeping beauty to prove we'd been there:

Ryan did grow up in the hog barn, so it seemed appropriate to get our picture outside the barn:

(Cracks me up that it looks like the guy in the back is hiding.)

And in our tour-de-animals, we also got an elephant ear. :)

 (Not a full smile because I was afraid I had a mouth full of cinnamon.)

It was delicious!! We did split it. I am not sure that in our current eating habit life, either of us could put away a full elephant ear alone.

We walked around for a bit, ran into a few people we knew, and enjoyed the sights and (most of) the smells of the fair. I will say, though, that Ryan knew way more people than I did. After he saw about the fifth person in a row, and I'd not only known none of them, but I also hadn't seen anyone I did know, I said to him, "Did I even grow up in this town?"

About that time, Ryan had to start his shift, and he got to work with one of his own co-workers, so that was fun!

I walked around for a while and then met up with my friend Amber, and we did some more exploring. (SO much more fun to walk around with someone than all alone!)

We ran into some of Ryan's family, and by the time we got back to see him at his booth, they were there visiting him! (I stole this next picture from Ryan's sister.)

By the time he was done working, everything had pretty much shut down for the night. I had planned to walk around and get pictures of the lights in the midway, but that was part of what had shut down. So fortunately I did grab this one picture while I was walking around with Amber!

My fair experience won't be rendered complete until I get my fried mushrooms, but this was a fine start!