Utah State Fair

Every year when I was young, our family would always go to the Oregon State Fair and I loved going.  Melina asked me today if there was anything that I really looked forward to with the fair when I was young and I don't think it was anything specific but I loved that day every year.  

For some reason, we have never been to the Utah State Fair!  So this year I decided that we were going to fix that and go!  

Last night after Mark got off work, we headed down to Draper and stayed the night at my parent's house.  We had a nice breakfast this morning with them and Megan came over too and then we headed up to the fair!

The kids were so excited!  They could not wait.  The only fair they have ever been to is our little county fair and I knew this would be quite the upgrade (I actually love our county fair - but it's obviously much smaller in scale).  

It was a smokey (my heart is so sad for all of those affected by these fires) and windy day but we didn't let that slow us down.  The kids could not wait to get started on the rides.  And Jacob and Sarah were both so brave - they were up for everything!  They can't wait until they are bigger and can go on everything!  

It was lots of fun to have Melina with us and she joined Mark, Jacob and Sarah, while Benjamin and I were their cheerleaders on the side.  And let me just say, Benjamin was an absolute gem the whole day.  He was so good to just cruise along with everything we did.  

We rode rides for a little bit and then grabbed some corn dogs and headed to the circus tent.  I've never been to a circus before so this was a first for all of us.  It was really fun.  And there was only one segment where I was convinced something horrific was about to happen...think... three motorcycles going in a small cage at the same time with a girl dangling in the middle!  AHHH!

We came back and did some more rides and games and then headed over to the animal section.  They were in the middle of doing the auction so things seemed a little confusing.  But they had a section for kids where they could see animals at different stages of growth and pet them and learn about the specific animal's life cycle.  It was actually really interesting.  Sarah was in heaven.  

The heat was starting to get to all of us and we felt ourselves dragging so the obvious solution was to get some ice cream.  Sarah was not happy about the rate in which her ice cream was melting but the rest of us loved the treat!

By this time the wind was really starting to pick up and we wanted to be on the road by dinner time so we told the kids they could each pick one more ride.  Jacob and Sarah both wanted to do this one ride, which isn't really even a ride, but has different slides and things you walk through.  Kids are funny.  So they went through that twice and then we headed out.  

It was such a fun day and we have unanimously decided it's going to be a new tradition!  We can't wait for more state fairs in the future!