Iowa State Fair

We decided to take a Friday off work, and take the kids to the fair.  Most years we go the night before the fair opens for the quilt preview night, and then we go the first Sunday of the fair.  Jeff and I were both traveling for the first week of the fair, so we took a day off work and took the kids on Friday morning.  The weather was great and we got there early so we enjoyed seeing our favorite things before it got too crowded.

Always on the list to do first is the big yellow slide.  It is a pretty big trek up the stairs, so Cooper carries the rugs for the little ones.

Then we stop for a snack - Cooper gets a Dutch letter, and I get a ham and cheese crescenti.  We always stop and take a picture with this nice lady every year.

 Next stop is to see the butter cow and this year she also did Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The kids also liked looking at the Floraculture crafts, and said they want to enter that contest next year.  I guess I will need to brush up on my rice crafts.

 The kids watched a Marionette puppet show at the AE Dairy stage and played in the Kids Zone and I wandered through the Cultural Arts building looking at the Art, Photography and Scrapbooking entries.

Then we made our way over to the animal barns. 

 

After this we split up for a short time, the boys wanted to go see the Army Reserve tanks and trucks, and Lexi and I watched a few dance routines at the Bill Riley stage while enjoying a glazed funnel cake!

Then we made our way over to the Varied Industries building to see my quilt entries.  I won three ribbons this year, but not on the quilts I thought would win.

Brody's quilts didn't win a ribbon.  I kind of thought the baby quilt would get a ribbon, the winning quilt in this category was a pre-printed panel.   His zoo quilt was a last minute entry, and we needed to wash it the night before I turned it in.  He saw that Lexi was taking her bed quilt so he wanted to put his in also.

My concentric squares quilt won an honorable mention in the block exchange division.

My pineapple quilt won a second place.  I think because of the great binding...unfortunately I can't take credit for that, my friend Jill did the binding on this one for me.   I had a few leftover blocks from this quilt so I made a table runner.  There were not many entries in this division, but no ribbon for the table runner.

And Lexi's quilt got a 2nd place.  This is funny because I literally slapped this one together fast one weekend.  I guess they liked the bright colors.

 Everyone was getting pretty tired and grouchy and it started getting hot in the afternoon, so we started making our way back to the car.  Stopping to enjoy more treats along the way...ice cream, corn dogs, gyros and then visiting DNR building.

The fair is the same every year, but always different.  Everybody has their favorites, and we always try to find something new each year also.