All's Fair

DO THE PUYALLUP: For weeks now, the kids have been looking forward to today, today being Puyallup Fair day for us!

While I went to a quick dentist appointment bright and early, Christian got the kids ready. We pulled out of our neighborhood about 9:20, heading southbound for Puyallup.

IN THE BARN: We arrived at the fair at about 10:30, which is before the rides are operating. This early arrival was by design, as I wanted to tour through some of the agricultural and educational exhibits.

We wandered through a couple of 4-H barns first, checking out the pigeons, a few chickens, and some really pretty rabbits. From there we made a beeline to the biggies - draft horses. Every time I see them, I still marvel over how huge they are. There were and Percherons, Belgians and Clydesdales. I can't imagine keeping those creatures in hay and horseshoes.

The Shetland ponies were in the same barn, offering quite the contrast.

EXHIBITS: We wandered up the midway, and into the "Go Play Outdoors" themed building. There, we found a nice woman from the National Parks Service who assisted the kids in making bookmarks. CJ played a game where he had to ID footprints and scat of various forest creatures. He did really well, getting them all right. In that same building were some nice men from the Audubon Society. At their booth the kids were able to color a template and make a button. Annabelle chose a bird to color; CJ chose a T-Rex. While I initially thought it odd they had dinosaurs to color, I reminded myself - and the kids - that our birds today are avian dinosaurs.

We strolled some more and made a quick tour through the small fair museum. It was fun looking at old ephemera and paraphernalia, including a couple of cars from old rides.

Soon, we made our way to a large pavilion. Inside were all sorts of 4-H fair entries (textiles, photography, mixed media art, canning, and so on). There were also some educational booths, including one by the Washington Geographic Alliance which had a huge map of the state of Washington spread out on the floor. CJ and Annabelle walked around the state and found our home as well as the fair's location.In that same building we chatted with some men from the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field. They are of the opinion that the museum has a pretty good shot at getting space shuttle Discovery for display. Let's hope so!

We worked our way over to the building with agricultural exhibits. We got a chance to see a couple colonies of busy bees making honey. And of course our Bee posed for a picture as a bee.

We saw some really big pumpkins, both natural and carved into a work of art.

We were all blown away by the gorgeous displays created by some Washington state Granges using homegrown produce.
We also toured through the hobbycraft building, where the kids learned you can earn a blue ribbon by building something cool out of Legos. Maybe I can convince them to give it a go next year.

THRILL SEEKERS: Once we got the educational stuff out of the way, we headed for the midway. It was time to check out the rides!

We started "small," with the giant slide. From there we moved over to what used to be called the Yo-Yo back in my time. It's really just an oversized swing. A bit tame, but the kids were just getting started.

There were rollercoasters to be ridden. First up - a dragon coaster that they've ridden for the past couple of years. Despite that, Bee was a bit apprehensive at first. ...
However, she soon warmed into it. After all, it was very a tame dragon now that CJ and Annabelle are veterans of Disneyworld and all!
They rode another oldie but a goodie - the Scrambler.

And they took a leisurely boat ride.
And then there was another rollercoaster ...
Come 2 o'clock it was time to take off. (We had to get back to Magnolia in time for Annabelle's ballet class, which is now on Monday afternoons.)


But there was time for just one more ride ...