Thursday, August 20, 2009

Warning: LONG fair post ahead!

Brad and I have lived in Brainerd now for over 5 years...

...and this year was the first year we hit the Crow Wing County Fair.

In our defense, we were usually on a youth missions trip, and we had heard such mixed opinions about our fair that we just didn't make the effort to go.

This year we were not in Detroit or Poland or anywhere else with our students, and we decided to put all the rumors aside and check it out for ourselves.

On a scale of 1 (being the lowest) and 10 (being the highest), I think we'd give the fair a 3...maybe 4.

(Sorry to all you fair goers and lovers!)

We did have a nice time as a family, but there just isn't much to our county fair. We didn't want our kids to go on the scary looking rides, and we didn't really want to spend money on food...even though that's usually why people go to the fair.

But the kiddos did seem to have a good time!

So we packed a picnic lunch and spent about two hours there doing wild and crazy things like...


...playing "Plinko"! Sammy and Caleb totally out played us! I only managed to make it into one "winner" spot, and Caleb made it into two spots, and Sammy made it into ALL THREE! She actually won a "Pulse" t-shirt. Nice job, little girl!


...looking at all the animals. The kids really enjoyed going into all the barns and seeing the animals close up.


...driving tractors...


...and driving really old cars.

One of the highlights for Sammy (aside from spending at least 30 minutes in the old school house coloring...we could NOT get her out of there) was going to the "Kids" Kountry" and learning about feeding animals, harvesting crops, going to the market, and getting paid for all of her hard work.


Here, Sammy is getting ready to feed her animals.


Sammy is feeding the chickens and collecting an egg.


Now she's feeding a sheep and collecting some wool.


She really liked driving the tractors around.


Here she is milking a cow and collecting some milk.


She also got to dig a hole and plant some seeds.


There were also vegetables to harvest as well. After that, she took all her produce to the market and received "fake money." She took her "money" to the "store" and was able to buy a treat. She decided on applesauce, and she even shared it with Caleb! What a good sister!

Honestly, we did have a good time...maybe we're just not the fair-going type. One thing I will say is to make sure to go early during the day. It was way less crowded, and we didn't have to park as far away. I did learn about these different kid contests where they can color or paint or build something and enter their work to be judged. A friend of mine's children made a KILLING because of all their entries. They won gift certificates and cash prizes. I plan on entering some of Sammy's work next year. We also did win 2 t-shirts (the Pulse and Fleet Farm) and a $10 gift certificate to Super One Foods.

So...maybe a score of 4.5 is more deserving!

2 comments:

gianna said...

ultimately, it looks like the kids had fun!

Jeremy Doyle said...

You didn't go for the food, and you went when it wasn't busy so you missed some good people watching. I think that you're probably right. You probably aren't fair people. Did you catch of the entertainment? There's some good free stuff.

I guess that's why they have the saying, to each their own.