State Fair Favorites

Perhaps by next weekend I will be done blogging about last weekend.  Or perhaps not.

We (and by "we" I mean Dane, Aidan, and I) had a blast at the State Fair.  I think even Brandon had a better time than he thought he'd have, what with all the Sham-WOW! fun and all.  And look!  Big Tex has a new shirt:

The kids rode several rides, the scariest one for Mom being this GIANT slide.  I don't know if you can fully appreciate the hugeness of this slide from this picture, but I would have been too chicken ride down.  Dane and Aidan didn't seem bothered by it.
Brandon and Aidan are on your right, Dane is racing on the left:
Don't they all look terrified??
One of the highlights of the Fair for Aidan was playing a couple of Midway games and winning cheap stuffed animals.  He and Dane played a fishing game and won a couple of puppies which they proceeded to drag around the Fair the entire rest of the afternoon.  (These animals were covered with Fair-dirt by the end of the day, and "accidently" got left at MoMo and Pappy's house.)
Dane also played that game on the Midway where you throw the football and try to get it into that impossibly small hole 10 feet in front and 8 feet above you.  My Dad had talked to the nice lady running the booth, and basically had arranged to buy one of the prizes if she would let Dane toss the football a few times.  Needless to say, both were a little shocked when Dane threw the football in the hole on only his second try.  He earned his prize fair and square.

No day at the Fair would be complete for Dane without a Fletcher's corny dog:
And Aidan learned the fine art of sticking your fingers in the plate of powdered sugar and licking them after the funnel cake was gone.  I don't know who taught him that.  So embarrassing.
To say he got disgusting would be an understatement.  He had sugar, snot, drool, sweat, and sunscreen all smeared around his face after it was all said and done.
We tried to get some cute cousin pictures after we ate.  This was the best it got.  This is what Aidan does when you tell him to smile for a picture.  Maybe he thought we said "Show me how big your underbite is!"
Then he thought we said "Show me how big your tongue is!"  (It's a freakishly big tongue.)  Meanwhile, Dane is just smiling and posing away.  
Here is the bride-to-be with baby Zane at his very first State Fair.  He's only slightly bigger than her engagement ring.
And finally, no day at the Fair would be complete without a trip into the petting zoo.  Please notice Brandon in the far left side of the picture.  At the petting zoo, you have to leave all strollers outside.  So while we had no qualms about leaving our $200 stroller outside, NO WAY was Brandon going to leave the newly-purchased Sham-Wows! out in the stroller.  Those could not leave our sight, lest they be stolen by the thousands of Sham-Wow hungry fanatics roaming the fair grounds.  So, yes, that is my husband gripping his Sham-Wows! between his legs while his son feeds a cow.  What?  Totally normal.