Spin til you puke! The fair is in town!

What an evening!  We had some extra duckets, and wanted to bless our little tax deductions....aka Eric, Gabriel, Abby and Anna.  To the County Fair!  The fair here is beautiful, grass, paths to walk on and a RODEO free with entrance fee to the fair!! I love a rodeo, and this was a bull riding rodeo!

We got arm bracelets for the kidlets, so they didn't have to figure out how to divide the tickets and spend inordinate amounts of time on the decision of which one to ride.  This proved to be a dilemma for my poor children.More on that later!

The fair is so safe, and sadly their was not the crowds (sad for the vendors, nice for us).  We arrived around 6pm, a good hour and half before the rodeo.  This was for getting the bracelets for the kids and a recon of my coveted funnel cake!

First the bumper cars! This proved to be the all time favorite of the evening! The thrill of slamming into each other was fun, 

but to slam into perfect strangers was beyond hilarious!  Gabriel was scary about his focus on catastrophe!  The girls, they just giggled through it all!

I took the girls to the bathroom and I look up and see my boys:

It is a nice leisurely ride up and you see everything in the fair...the girls looked on, thinking that looks doable. Then it came down a bit faster:

We were excited to have Dan & Peggy Jamison come over to join us for the evening.  It was Dan's birthday and he loves a rodeo.  To start the rodeo off, a man is dropped from a plane with the American flag.  Oh and "I'm proud to be an American" is rocked throughout the stands!  We live in a very, very conservative part of California, with a whole lot of farmers!  We are a proud group of Americans!  The crowd roared as the flag came into view:

I mean roared! People began to stand and the crescendo of Lee Greenwood's voice just boomed..cause their ain't no doubt I love this land, God bless the U.S.Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

The Star Spangle Banner was next and oh, yeah, I get a lump, how could you not, seeing the people around you proud of the flag and the country you love:

I blame The Pioneer Woman for the above picture, I just love the hats off gesture of respect, especially when it is a cowboy hat!
Then the rodeo was on...started with the peewee division, that meant 13 year old boys...I was thinking where are their mothers? I hardly looked at the rides!
Then the regular bull rides came:
A lot of this:

and a whole lot of this:

I think 3 kinda finished, but one of them got dragged off the arena, his leg got stomped on so bad...my tummy was all in knots.
There were more highlites, but I got into the screaming and eeking of them all, like the double teeter totter of 4 cowboys who had to stay on to try and win $1000!  The back of the teetertotter had red, white and blue bunting, and the cowboys would get that ol' bull to come charging and try and push themselves up and the other is trying to push him down, cause the last cowboy on the ride wins the money...I don't know what happened much, cause I hid behind my paper fan! It sounded gruesome!
Then back to the fair....the kids had come to the rodeo, and I had a hankering for my funnel cake.
btw I had a carb free day to indulge on this amazing food of nothing but sugar flour and lard! lol
We had given each child $5 to get food or drink or whatever.  They got whatever. The boys tried darts to win football jerseys, uhm no jersey and now no money.  Anna  tried to win a live frog.
We have about 5 frogs that live by our front step, and I think the carcasses of a few others have baked in containers in our backyard, so why they would do this astounds me...but hey it wasn't thier money?? aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh...yeah, mom is losing patience.....
They won't go on any rides, rides they said oh yeah, the previous years that we couldn't do them all!! The girls stood in line, and got to the front and then chickened out.  So, I explained facts, with my finger pointing and all, and amazing they decided to try some new rides:

 They liked it! Imagine that!!! 

It was hard to capture Gman and Eric...but they were having fun, poor G was exhausted from holding on, trying not to smoosh Eric.
This pic is blurry, but this is a fast ride and those are Abby's hands in the air!!

The Jamision's laughed with us, as the kids finally found fun.  Gabriel and Eric went on the Graviton, I spaced getting pics, but it is a space ship that goes in a circle and spins and spins so you are pinned from the force to the sides!  Gabriel came running out of that one..."Girls, girls, you have to go on that one, it is so cool, you are stuck to the sides!!"  It was closed for maintenance (which in carnie talk means, hosing down vomit), so they took off to the ferris wheel and a few others to work their way back to the midway.  They got back and all went on the Graviton.  Gabriel didn't look as pleased when he got off this time.
Abby had some money left, she got a pickle and did a pony ride and Anna had a few dollars so got a snow cone.  Gabriel went to bathroom in hopes of throwing up.
Midnight was rapidly approaching and we hurried to the van, the chills had hit Gabriel.  Hunger had hit the kids hard.  Eric and the girls grabbed a quick snack and Gabriel hugged the toilet and then we all went to bed...it is 9am, and the kids are still crashed...pretty good nite, don't cha think?