VacayDay 8: The Fairest of them All

Here we are, 4th of July and last day of vacation. We take the morning slow and (probably for lack of communication) everybody waits around on everyone else for an hour or two before we leave to St. Paul, Oregon, for their rodeo/fair. Carrie's family runs a Tiger Ear booth at a few fairs throughout the summer . . . so we thought it would be fun to go down to the fair. After about an hour of driving we arrive in the tiniest town with about 2000 cars parked everywhere. It was crazy. We found the Call Family food booth and were hooked up with free Tiger Ears and Pop (I think this may be a major reason for my 5lb weight gain on the vacay).

After a little of that we headed to find the ticket booth to ride a few rides. It so happens we had just 90 more minutes for 1/2 price tickets for the rides. So we decided to buy about $30 and ride everything we possibly could. The first stop, the little dragon coaster:
It was rickety-rackety, and Ellie was pretty much thinking she was going to die the whole time (see below). I felt bad for her and yet at the same time thought it was pretty hilarious.

Ellie's all-time-favoritest-ride ever invented? The plane! You know she LOVES planes! I was a little nervous she would get scared when it started going faster and higher . . . but the look on her face calmed me down right quick. I don't think I've ever seen her so happy!



Next the kids rode the merrygoround--Stina's all-time-favortiest-ride. When it was time to get off D had to pry her fingers off and drag her away. She made her trademark fat little pouty-duck-lip for the next few minutes. It was cute.
Here is everyone on the ferris wheel. Sadly, I was the only one freaking out on this one -- me and my vertigo!

And just as our 90 minutes expired we ran over to the massive slide. It was pretty fun, at least the kids thought so.


Here's just a few cute pictures of us wandering around:





Alas, we got back and made sure we were all packed up. Darik took a nap until about 7 or 8 so he could be ready for an all-nighter of driving (Thank Heavens for Mountain Dew, I swear that beverage has saved our lives a few times on all-night drives!). We were Ok skipping the fireworks this year. It would have been nice, but we wanted to make sure we could make the trip home safely even more. So this is the lone firework I saw as we drove through the river valley on the way home. Happy 4th of July!
A little bit after Boise around 5 am Darik passed the reigns over to me. We made it back at 730 am Saturday morning and immediately unpacked the van and then weeded the lawn for 3 hours. It is nice to be back but we miss vacation as well. I must say, two things I regret: one, not going to Powell's Books downtown; and two, not buying that smokin silver Nike tote bag that seemed like it had been DeSiGNEd for me!!