The Allen County Fair

At the end of August, we, along with our friends, Jeff and Laura Talbot and their two girls, went to the Allen County Fair. When I was a little girl we went to the Washington County Fair maybe once or twice (maybe), and my memories of that were walking around looking at people selling plastic canvas crafts or some kind of baked good. Lots of kids were eating cotton candy, which I always dreamed of trying but never did until I was an adult (by the way, when I did try it, I silently thanked my parents for never wasting their money on it—I thought the straight sugar flavor was too sweet and was very disappointed. They should have just told me to eat a ½ cup of sugar and I would have known what eating cotton candy tastes like—my apologies to any cotton candy lover out there). Anyway, I'm sure my kids will have much different memories of the fair thanks to Metokote, Michael's generous employer. They give us free ride passes, which means that my fortunate children get to ride any of the old, rickety, very expensive rides in the park of that they choose (on the night we went, a ride bracelet was a whopping $19). The kids love it! Just yesterday, a month later, Thobe asked me when we would go to the fair again and proceeded to tell me how a Farris wheel works. I personally loved spending time with Michael, the kids, and the Talbots.

When we got there we were one ride bracelet short. I thought Hyrum wouldn't care if he could ride or not—boy was I wrong! He was very upset when we stopped at our first ride, the Merry-Go-Round, and his brothers and dad both got on the ride, and he stayed in the stroller. I realized that because I have a weak stomach and get sick on everything that I probably wouldn't ride any of the fair rides, and that taking the ride bracelet myself was foolish (a quick digression—last year when we went, Michael begged me to go on a twirlly ride. I told him that I would get sick and that I shouldn't nor did I want to go—I barfed on my dad when I rode the tilt-a-whirl at Lagoon when I was 10 and didn't want that to happen again. Michael is a very persistent man and finally convinced me to go. I went and regretted it. I felt so, so sick and was surprised that a funnel cake, another fair treat I had never tried until that point, made me feel a lot better). Anyway, I decided that although Hyrum wouldn't ride a lot of the rides that he would enjoy having the bracelet more than I would and ran back to where we got the bracelets to see if I could change. They were hesitant and annoyed with my indecisiveness, but finally agreed. Anyway, I was really glad that I did that because Laura, who is pregnant, couldn't ride the rides anyway, so I, as usual, had a really fun time talking to her while our kids and husbands rode the rides.


Perhaps the scariest part of the evening was when Alden decided that he wanted to ride whatever Michael rode and got on the Power Tower, the ride that takes you way, way, way up into the air and then suddenly drops you. Alden was very happy and smiley as the ride took him up. When he got back down to the bottom, terror had etched its way into every crevice of his face. When Laura and I started clapping, the terror slowly changed to elation, and he was thrilled. It made him feel very, very brave, as it should have. I must admit that as I stood on the side line, I was shaking for him.


Without question, our funniest fair fiasco was when Michael and Jeff walked the little kids up to the little tiny roller coaster. The kids were a little bit in front of them and clamored into their seats as soon as they got the chance. That of course left Michael and Jeff standing there, so not knowing what to do, the two of them got into a car together. You can't really see them in the picture, partly because I was laughing so hard, but it was pretty hilarious to see two grown men sharing a ride on a baby roller coaster. Michael will probably be mad at me for putting this in here, but I really couldn't resist—can you blame me? He wasn't exactly thrilled about me taking the picture either.
Anyway, we had another fun year at the fair. Jeff and Michael bought us two funnel cakes to share between our two families. It certainly wasn't the healthiest thing I've eaten this month, but it was really delicious and a lot of fun. We're glad to have the Talbots as our friends. They're really fantastic!