Minnesota State Fair

When Allyson told us we were going to the Minnesota State Fair, I never imagined what we walked in to. I was imagining a small area with a few food vendors and cheap carnival rides. Instead we walked into a fair that looked like a smaller version of Michigan's Adventure Amusement park. It was ridiculous! There were streets filled with food vendors, buildings full of animals and other local products, rows of carnival games, and the midway filled with amusement park rides. We were there for like 5 hours and barely scratched the surface of things to do.

So many people!

We had mini donuts, turtle brownies, a bucket of cookies, foot long corn dogs, sausage, pretzels, honey lemonade, honey ice cream, and cheese curds. Ryenn loved eating cookies. She ate four of them in one sitting! You could also find almost anything deep fried: Twinkies, apple pie, candy bars. There were so many choices that it was so difficult to choose. We could have spent 2 or 3 more days just eating!


All you can drink milk!

Eating cookies

The Midway was unexpected. It was loaded with games, rides, and even a "freak show" tent. We played a few of the games and won the kids a lion stuffed animal. We went searching for a few rides that Nolan could go on, but we didn't see any. He actually spotted the carousel and started pulling me towards it. He was so happy to be on it!

 

And the animals! Oh they animals! Nolan was ecstatic about the animals! As we were walking in, a lamb that was only a few hours old was being walked right past us. The man carrying him stopped so Nolan could pet him. He loved it. The lamb was so cute! This made us immediately head towards the "Miracle of Life" barn. This barn was loaded with recently born animals and pregnant mothers. We saw goats that were a few weeks old, lambs that were a few hours old, and piglets that were only a few minutes old! They had tons of pregnant sheep and cows (which Nolan really loved). It was amazing. We also saw the largest boar, some sheep in bright colored spandex coats, a mini pony that wears shoes from build-a-bear, and a whole barn filled with just bunnies!

We went to the fair on Thursday which was opening day. The attendance number was astounding. There were 103,738 people there just on Thursday! We saw impromptu parades, knitted items exhibit, Princess Kay of the Milky Way getting her butter sculpture done, seed art, and other really neat things. I think that this may be a regular vacation for us because it was so amazing!!!

 

Ryenn was a little tired towards the end of the day and fell asleep in the carrier. She was a trooper!