Like most things in 2020, the Texas State Fair was cancelled this year. But also like many things in 2020, they came up with a new & creative way to still have fair activities - even if it was different than before.
We clearly bought tickets for the previous weekend and missed out. But luckily for us, there were still available tickets for this weekend! It would have been nice to have swapped the dates, but they were non-refundable. We chalked the unused tickets up to a donation to keep the fair going!
It wasn’t actually the fair, but they were doing a drive-through to get all of the fair foods. There were window of time for entries, but they cautioned everyone that there would be some waiting to get in. There was a lot of weaving through the parking lot to get everyone queued up for entry off of the streets.
The kids didn’t mind the waiting at all because there were silly jokes on signs in the parking lot. That and the fact we let them hang out of the sunroof since we weren’t really moving.
Henry enjoyed the window gazing more than Thomas, so I offered to let him sit in my lap. I was just being sneaky on getting in some extra hugs. ;)
Of course, I wanted to get in on the fun of standing out of the sunroof. And what better place than when we were about to get Fletchers corny dogs??
I’m glad that they still went ahead and decorated for maximum fun even with the scaled back event. Now I really want a planter with Big Tex in pink & navy! :)
We mostly just grabbed the bags of food and stuck them safely on the floor of the minivan. But the fried oreos… well those got wolfed down immediately.
Sooooo yummy!
They even did social distanced photos with Big Tex, who was also masked up, because why not??
I didn’t even have to cajole the boys into wearing their Big Tex shirts - they were pumped to wear them this morning!
Well you may have noticed that the littlest one is missing. We were initially going to take her, but I thought she might not enjoy waiting in the car for so long and asked Mom if she would mind if we left the youngest behind?
Obviously Nonni didn’t mind at all! Natalie had a blast hanging out at the farm and meeting the goats! Of course, her hearing aid battery died and the spare battery was hanging on the keys in my pocket… Luckily they made it through the day with a bit more yelling and a few more “huh?”s than usual.
Back to the fair! We finally got all of our food and made it to the parking lot at the end to eat all of our yummy goodies. While not quite as good as when you eat the food right out of the fryer, it was still worth the trip. :)
Matt’s favorite has always been the corn and there is usually a fight over who gets to eat it all. Well the corn suffered the most in the wait to consume it, but Matt still gnawed on it. The boys and I all passed though.
We stopped by to see Grannie after the fair since she lives so close, but I didn’t get any photos while we were there. I promise we were super happy to see you Grannie, despite the lack of photos!
After sitting in the car most of the day, the boys were ready to stretch their legs and run around. We also discovered that Thomas is finally big enough to use the Green Monster that John & Allie gave us years ago. We’ve tried a few times before and he was always just a little too short to pedal well, but not this time! He was so excited to finally be able to whip it around the driveway.
This girl had plenty of time to run around, but was still up for more running around once we got back! And apparently now wants to be Canadian?
But the real excitement of the afternoon was the rocket launching time! Matt bought these rockets a few months ago and the boys helped him build them, but we hadn’t gotten a chance to launch them yet. Luckily there is plenty of room at my parent's house to launch these bad boys up in the air and not lose them in the breeze.
Honestly the most excited person about the rockets was my mom! She was just amazed by how high up they went and was super excited every time the parachute popped out. “There is it! Oh no, the parachute isn’t opening - c’mon parachute!!”
lol - my dad rolled up in his tractor to watch the show with his trusty side-kick, Anna. She is so happy to just go wherever he does.
But she had to vacate the wagon so the kids could finally get their tractor ride! Honestly the boys were more excited about the tractor ride than anything else. Thomas couldn’t stop talking about the tractor ride and was throwing a fit when we had to stop on the drive home to get batteries for the rocket launcher. We was being all sassy in the back seat “So I guess that batteries are more important than spending time with mothers and grandmothers??”
Well he finally got his tractor ride and then wanted to bail on the ride halfway through when he saw his dad launching rockets from across the field. I was getting a leg cramp from holding Natalie steady while also trying not to get my cool orange pants dirty - lol, priorities. ;)
Overall, it was a great day and I am glad we made a second attempt at heading to the fair. Hopefully we get the real one back next year though…!