Adventures at the fair

Last night we trundled our clutch of kidlets to the Utah State Fair.

I love the fair.  I like seeing exotic squash and gigantic peppers and beehives and 4H creations and I love the fresh, soothing smell of animals (honestly, Josh thinks I'm nuts, but I do).  This year we had managed to procure a foursome of free tickets and we bundled that with a Monday night trip on a "kids 12 and under are free" evening so aside from paying for parking ($8...seriously?) our adventure was very budget friendly.

Monk sheep in their ceremonial shrouds.  We chatted with them, but they had taken a vow of silence so it was a pretty one sided conversation.

My younger kids have not been able to be around farm animals much since we don't visit my grandparent's home as often as we used to (we leave their great-grandparents exhausted and their small home bursting at the seams, plus the kids activities make travel to see them more difficult these days).

Anyway, we explored animal exhibits (including watching some chicks pick their way out of eggs which was pretty cool), watched a couple of shows on the pavilion, rode one ride each (which meant waiting in lots of lines because heaven forbid we all choose to go on the same thing) and just had a good time.

Logan picked up every single flyer available as we walked around, he had quite the collection by
the time we headed for home.

Ellie loved the rabbits best of all...she did NOT like the goats...find out why later.

The funnest animal building was the goats for sure.  There were LOTS of goats out and about to interact with.  It took a bit of prodding to talk Ellie into getting up close and personal with the animals (she was a bit nervous).  But by the time we hit the goats, she was doing much better.  So she walked right up to a little one to say hi and he promptly sneezed right in her face.  Gross!!!  She was pretty upset (but the rest of us were trying to hold in the laughs...poor picked on little princess).

Aubrey being cheesy with her little friend.

This little fiend was determined to explore Parker's arm pit.  OK.

But the best part of all was when Bryce kissed a goat on the lips.

(Actually, the sweet man in charge of these goats gave Bryce a peanut and dared him to feed it to the goat with his mouth...which Bryce did -- after Aubrey flatly refused to participate in such shenanigans...way to go Bryce!)

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All in all it was just a fun little night out with the family.  

Like I said, I love the fair.