Texas Day 2 - The Great State Fair of Texas!!

My plan was to write 1 blog entry a day last week. Didn't so much happen. The delay was meant to be as  I also have sad news to add. It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that Big Tex burned down on Friday. If you don't know who he is, you're obviously not a Texan. If you know who he is, then you must have revered him as a child, kept a special place in your heart for him and be as saddened by his loss as I am. My last viewing of him is captured in film below. RIP Big Tex.

Now on to more cheery stuff. This is why we left my favorite time of year in New England....to visit the Great State Fair of Texas! It was a yearly big event for our family and I haven't been back since high school. Every year I've thought about going back to Dallas during this time of year but it just didn't happen for one reason or another. Now, though, it was time to introduce my boys to a true fair experience...and Big Tex.

Our First (and Final) Picture With The Original Big Tex

Considering Dylan wouldn't last all day without a nap, we got to the fair as early as we could to get in as much fun as possible before we pooped the kiddos out. We drove to a DART rail station and rode the train right to the front gate of the fair grounds. It was actually my first time on the trains in Dallas. Kind of weird since public transportation was not something widely embraced when I lived in Dallas and I didn't get used to using it regularly until moving to Boston.

Upon entry to the fair grounds, we saw Borden Milk's Elsie
getting filmed for a news cast. She was beautiful!

First up, we headed to the petting zoo. I didn't see Dylan much of the time because he was racing around, trailed by Mimaw and Pipaw seeing as many animals as he could as quickly as possible. Mike, Cade and I hung back to take our time petting and feeding them. Cade enjoyed it, I think.

This camel really wanted to get to Cade.
Cade was really not sure about him.

My favorite animal of the petting zoo were the baby zebras.

While I went off to find a place to feed Cade, Mike and my parents took Dylan through the farm life exhibit. Dylan seemed not into it on their first go round but apparently decided he really liked it because that's all he wanted to go back and do most of the day. We were able to fit in another trip before leaving the fair grounds and this time I got to join him. There were several sections and in each one you had to do some "work" and then add something to your basket. For example, Dylan was given a bag of feed (corn) and gave some to the cows (statues of course) and then grabbed a carton of milk. At the end, he sold his goods to the store, was given a fake dollar and then could go to the store himself and buy a snack. It was pretty cute.

Tractor Trike

After playing farm and seeing a lot of fake animals, it was time to head over to the see the real animals. As a kid, my brothers and I didn't have a lot of interest in the barns but Dylan wanted to go. So we did. Once there, he was only mildly interested in the cows. He was somewhat interested in the hatching chicks. He was extremely interested in the toys that were there. You can take the kid out of the play room but not the love of toys out of the kid.

We quickly meandered through the creative arts building where my Mom and I have had entries in years gone past. Other than the lego installations, Dylan was not into and so we moved on. I got to pick our next activity and I chose the car building. I've been toying with the idea of getting a new car so thought I could do a little shopping. Unfortunately, the cars I've been thinking about were not represented there. It wasn't a waste of time in the least though because the boys had a great time playing in the showroom.

My parents had grabbed some corny dogs for their lunch while we were playing in the cars and then wanted to take Dylan to the bird show which they though he would enjoy. So, they went there while Mike and I found something to feed ourselves and Cade. We met up with them at the show where Dylan was less than impressed and I was baking in the direct hot sun. So, we moved on.

On the way to the bird show, my parents let Dylan play in a fountain.
When his arms came out, they had turned green! Yuck!

I stopped to nurse Cade, Mike wandered off to the Midway and my parents played with Dylan. When Cade was done, we realized we were close to one of the things I wanted Dylan to see so we took off and texted Mike where we were heading...to see the TreeMan at the Greenhouse. He was pretty cool and I was glad we caught the act. The Greenhouse was also filled with trains going around tracks everywhere and the boys were very entertained by that.

And what was Mike up to when he separated from us? He was off playing games and won Dylan a HUGE minion. He seems to have a habit of winning huge stuffed animals and are far from home. In Disney, we paid an arm and a leg to have a ginormous blue bear shipped home. It looked like history was repeating itself!

At this point, it had been a pretty long day and the boys were really tired. It was time to head back. But, of course, Dylan had it in him to do one more round of the farm set up. This time, Cade got to play too.

When I was a kid, we would stay at the fair all day long. We wouldn't leave until after the parade and fireworks show was over. I really wanted to see the night time show and show the arts and crafts tents but the kids were pooped. Just as a "maybe later" precaution, we got stamped so we could come back if we wanted and hopped the train back to the cars.

Dylan Holding Hands With His Minion

That night, my Mom and I decided to run back up to the fair to do some shopping. But not before putting this cute little guy to bed for the night.

The fair grounds are about a 10 minute drive from my parents' house so my Dad dropped us off at the front gate. The night time fire\water\laser show was going on just inside and my Mom and I got to see the last few minutes of it while we walked to the arts and crafts tents. We shopped 2 tents on 2 sides of the park, both had exciting purchases and then called my Dad to come pick us up. When we were exiting the park, we saw him pull up. Great timing! So, I got to do everything at the fair I wanted to do. Yay! I even sampled a bite of the fried food fare (fried cheesecake) that is so big now. I'll have another post featuring deep fried everything (hopefully) tomorrow. Oh, and as for the minion, I was somehow able to shove him in our large suitcase so we didn't have to ship him after all!