A Trip to the Texas State Fair

The day after our trip to the pumpkin farm, my mom returned to Louisiana and the three of us (Will, Liam, myself) ventured down to the state fair of Texas. It was Will and Liam's first time, and my second. I went on a staff trip there three years ago. I had wanted to go back ever since because there were still several things I wanted to see and do, plus it really is something everyone in Texas (at least the Dallas area) should go to at least once.

We took the DART train down there. Liam stayed in his stroller the whole time on the train. Thankfully, it never got too crowded and awkward. There was a girl about Liam's age in a stroller next to us on the train, so he wasn't alone. There were lots of people for him to stare at, so he was very well-behaved.

The first thing we did was go through the American car show. Will had fun sitting in different vehicles, especially the Corvette. It's his dream to own one someday! Then we saw Big Tex, who was talking and letting us know his clothes were provided by Dickies. I still think he looks like the cowboy version of Abraham Lincoln. We then came upon the food court and decided it would be best to eat before there was a rush at lunchtime. We didn't go for any fried food at that time (that happened later). I really wanted to ride the Texas Star Ferris wheel, so once we were outside the food court, I looked up to see where it was located. Then we headed in that direction, passing the Cotton Bowl and part of the Midway. Thankfully, the line wasn't horrendous, and it appeared that we wouldn't have to ditch the stroller until we got pretty close to the ride. We decided to go for it. Liam just made the 34 inch tall cutoff to ride free! He did very well on the Ferris wheel, only squirming a little. It was windy! I loved being up high and seeing the fair below and the downtown skyline in the distance. I only wish the ride lasted longer.

After that, we decided to go find an activity Liam might enjoy. We headed towards the petting zoo. Once again, we had to ditch the stroller at the door and just leave it. I hated that part of the fair. It's unnatural to leave a valued possession unattended, but we had to do it. I comforted myself with the fact that ours was not the nicest stroller there, so if someone were to come through and go stroller shopping, they'd pass over ours for a Maclaren or something. Except for the Ferris wheel ride, Liam had been in the stroller our entire time at the fair. So when we let his feet hit the ground in the petting zoo (animals stink, ya'll), he was off! It was crowded, and he just put his head down and started running. I'm pretty sure he did run into a couple people. Will snatched him up and we tried to distract him by showing him the animals and coaxing him to pet them. It worked a little bit, but really he just wanted his freedom. Unfortunately, we couldn't really give it to him there. The Little Hands on the Farm area was next to it, so we then went there so Liam would be in an enclosed area to walk (run) around in. Liam literally ran through all the stations, didn't get an apron or a bucket, or his corn, or anything. Poor thing tripped and fell down several times too since he was going too fast. We were just chasing him through it, hoping he wouldn't knock anyone or anything over. At some point, a lady handed me a fake dollar to spend in the General Store there. The kid is supposed to pick out a snack and pay with the dollar. Since my kid was long gone, I picked out a granola bar and gave it to Will. We then managed to get a screaming Liam back in the stroller, his freedom once again taken away from him.

We were all tired at that point, and it was HOT that day at the fair. I think we then ended up in the Food and Fiber Building and having a snack and a cold drink. I think this was also when we went through part of the Embarcadero Building and saw an underwhelming butter sculpture and a close to life-size Lego version of Dirk Nowitzki. Since it was almost time for one to start, we decided to see the dog trick show. Liam loves dogs, so we figured he would get a kick out of it. We had to wait about 15 minutes before it started, with Liam squirming and complaining (of course we had to leave our stroller on the ground while we sat in the bleachers). It finally started and the dogs performed a couple tricks, but the trainer guy kept talking TOO MUCH and it sounded like "Whomp whomp whomp" to us. We couldn't understand a word. We wanted less talk and more tricks so Liam might be entertained, but it just wasn't happening. We left about five minutes into the show. Liam was losing it! He was tired and cranky. So we put him back in the stroller, reclined it, put the shade over him, and made him go to sleep. And he did. After dealing with Liam and a lack of water and food, we were cranky. We went back to the food court and had a twister tator (basically potato chips), and once we had eaten that and had some water and calmed down, we decided to go for the funnel cake. Of course it was delicious, but I did feel yucky the rest of the day.

Liam was out, so we decided to go through the other half of the car show that featured foreign brands. It was nice to be in the air-conditioned building. After that, we headed back to the train station to go home. I think we spent about five hours total at the fair. Liam ended up sleeping about an hour and a half in the stroller and woke up around the Deep Ellum stop on the Green Line train. He woke up in a good mood, thankfully. When we got to the Pearl station to switch to the Red Line train that would take us back home, there was one there waiting, so we got off one train and right on to another. This time it was more crowded, and we had to stand for part of the ride.

That was our trip to the state fair. We've decided Liam is not going back to the fair until he's old enough to really enjoy it and walk around the whole time by himself. So probably like when he's four or five. We still didn't do or see everything. I wanted to see the bird show, but there's no way Liam would have the patience to sit through that. It was still a fun family outing!

Flirting with a lady on the train

I love being at the fair!

Will taking a picture of some people on a photo scavenger hunt

Will in the Vette

Big Tex and his awkwardly bent arm

Ferris wheel!

Looking down on the midway with the Starplex/Superpages.com Center/Gexa Energy Pavilion in the background

Looking out over Dallas

Family picture!

Dallas skyline

Sitting calmly on the Ferris wheel

You're gonna let me touch this animal?!

There, there. Nice animal.

That ostrich annihilated that cup of feed. I was scared of him a little bit.

Liam reached out and touched that girl before petting the goat.

More "dogs!"

Cute little goats

Real-life Sophie

Waiting for the dogs to start jumping

Texas Beetle

Zonked

The Big Orange Pumpkin Farm

My mom (Liam's Nana) was able to come for a quick visit last week. While she was here, we decided to take a trip to The Big Orange Pumpkin Farm in Celina. Thursday morning, we made the drive north to McKinney and then found ourselves out in the COUNTRY! I'm talking roads with no middle lines. Now, I grew up in the country outside of a small town on a road with no middle line, so it wasn't a foreign concept to me. But when you live in the Dallas 'burbs for awhile, you start to forget those places exist and that they exist fairly close by. It was nice to be out of the city.

We pulled in and parked on the grass near the school buses (field trip time!), paid our admission, got our cups of animal feed, and was then greeted by a longhorn cow (or bull). Liam was excited to see her (or him...not sure which), and promptly said, "Dog!" At home when I show him pictures of a cow, he says dog. I can't tell if he's trying to be funny or not. But "dog" is the only proper animal name he says, so everything is usually a dog. I gave the longhorn a treat, and then all the other cows sauntered over to see if I would hook them up as well. As with all petting zoos, they've been trained to beg! We then made our way over to the sheep. I held the cup of feed where a sheep could get it, and he promptly took the cup from my hand, tipped it back and let the feed fall in his mouth (although most of it went on the ground). What a sight! I did get Liam to say "baa" when I asked him what a sheep said. Then we checked out the goats. They were professional moochers as well and stuck their heads out of the fence in hopes that they would be the one to get the precious cup of feed. Liam was really amused by them. They got really close to him and a couple even licked his shoes. He loved those "dogs." Same thing happened with the cup of feed...it was jerked from my hand and gobbled up in one motion. Petting zoo animals don't play.

It was a misty morning, so everything was kind of damp. It even sprinkled a little while we were there. Misty morning + ground not covered by cement = a muddy mess. Even so, I knew I couldn't keep Liam in his stroller the whole time. So I let him out to explore the pumpkin patch. For some reason, there were lots of dips and ridges in the patch, so treacherous ground for a toddler, especially one who had just been given freedom and wanted to run. Liam fell down a few times, got muddy hands, and finally picked out a pumpkin he could carry. I had to clean off the pumpkin before it was allowed in the stroller. At this point, Liam's shoes were caked in mud, so then it was time to walk on hay to make sure they got good and gross! We entered the hay bale maze and let Liam lead the way since he seemed to know where he was going. (That turned out to NOT be the case.) We encountered a dead end and lots of school kids running through. Then Liam got turned around and started going back towards the entrance where lots of kids were running in. He almost got trampled by some first graders. After exiting through the entrance, Liam just took off walking/running. He was going as fast as he could and swinging his left arm. When he does that, it means he DOES NOT want to be caught. He just wants to go! My mom caught him and I took him to a safer area to walk around. Then I caught him again and put him back in the stroller.

After that, we decided to go on the hayride since the school kids seemed to have all had their turn on it and it was now available. It was a pretty long ride and went around a pond and by a small church and a large barn. Decorated hay bales dotted the path. It sprinkled on us for part of the ride, but it wasn't too bad. Liam did a great job of sitting still in my lap for the ride. He tried to chew on some hay, but it tickled his mouth whenever he tried to chew it. After the hayride, we decided to leave. However, the leaving part took forever! This was because we had to deal with all the mud and grass/hay that accumulated on anything that touched the ground. Thankfully, I had thrown a fresh roll of these in the diaper bag. Off came Liam's shoes and they went straight into a plastic bag. I then got him buckled in his seat. The biggest challenge was the wheels of the stroller. I'd brought the big Chicco, so it had 6 wheels instead of just 4, and they were all caked in mud and grass. Since we had parked on grass, there was no concrete to help get the mud off. I didn't really want to put the stroller with nasty wheels in the back of my still new-ish car, but I figured that was my only choice. Until...I figured out that I could cover each wheel with one of the plastic bags! Thankfully, the bags did fit, and my mom held the stroller up while I covered them. Then I was able to put it in the back without getting dirt on everything. Mommy engineering. I got as much of the mud off my shoes as I could, but the floor mat still needed to be cleaned later. Those shoes (as well as Liam's) are still out of commission and needing to be cleaned.

When we finally left, we headed to Allen to have lunch at Uncle Julio's. Liam ate most of his PB&J and amused himself by swinging around a spoon. Then we went to the Stride Rite outlet store, and Nana bought Liam some new shoes! So it no longer mattered that his other ones were still dirty! It was a fun morning/early afternoon together, and Liam was so wound up afterward that it took him over an hour to fall asleep for his nap at home.

A Trip to the Cottonwood Art Festival

This was our first time attending the art festival, even though we've lived here five years. In the past, I've just thought of it as the event that makes getting to Whole Foods or the recycling center difficult. But it is actually a lovely little festival. The art was amazing, we got to eat funnel cake (Liam got his first little taste of it) and kettle corn, and we got to see a Beatles cover band. They played the entire the time we were there, so even if we weren't specifically watching them, we could hear them.

The weather was cold (in the fifties...which is cold for here), but we bundled up and went anyway. Liam behaved well, but he was in his stroller most of the time. When we let him out of it for some freedom, he immediately tried to take stuff out of other people's strollers. He's always fascinated by other people's stuff, especially when it's at his level. Thankfully, at this age, people just think it's cute. We had a nice time walking around looking at the art booths and listening to the band. They are called "A Hard Night's Day" and they played two 1.5 hour sets that day. I'll let it slide that they are a five-piece band instead of four. They sang some pretty obscure Beatles songs though, like "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey." Yep, that's the title of a Beatles song.

All in all, we had a good time. I think Liam enjoyed seeing all the dogs there since he was at their level.