Every year, we make our annual summer trip to the State Fair! It’s about a 1.5 hour drive for us, so we make a whole day trip out of it. We typically pack a lunch and arrive around 11am, and then stay through dinner and head home around 8pm.
There is SO MUCH to do and see at the fair! We have been going for several years and have kind of figured out what we really want to see and what we can skip. The weather this year was lovely- it was warm enough to break a sweat while walking, but it wasn’t miserably hot like it was last year!
We arrived around 11am and met up with my parents and my brother at the main gate. My brother and his family live in Wisconsin, but he had come down to visit my parents and help out with my Dad’s latest round of chemo. It was so great to have him here, but we sure did miss his wife and kids!
Here is my parents, my brother, my three older kids and if you look at the left hand side of the picture you can see Theo and Ori haha.
We made an action plan and started walking towards some of the animal barns. But, first- a stop to take the Pepsi challenge:
We were all kind of confused by this, though- there were two cups and you had to guess which one was Pepsi. But there were no directions about what the other one might be. My Mom asked what it was, and they said “well, we only have one major competitor” So, Coke? But what business does Pepsi have offering a taste of Coke? What if I like Coke more? What then? That’s not great advertising for Pepsi haha. And then when you got it correct, the screen just flashed and that was it. C’mon…I need some kind of prize or something! Anyways, after a nice refreshing sip of both Pepsi and “the Competitor”, we moved on to some animal barns.
I am always so impressed by the animals!
Right outside the cow barn was a very quiet spot with some picnic tables, so we decided to stop for some lunch. Sandwiches, chips, carrot sticks, and some cookies!
Next up was the butter cow display- all of these statues are made out of butter!
After the butter cows, we headed over to the swine barn. There wasn’t a lot of animals at the fair yet (the state fair runs for 2 weeks, so I think some of the 4H crew wait until different dates to bring their animals in. Anyways, we did find this one pig who was taking a nap with her ears over her eyes!
Next we headed to the piggy races! This is SO CHEESY, but it’s like a core part of the fair. The pigs just race around a tiny track and you guess who wins. The announcers act all silly and loud and there is hype music and it’s just a whole fair vibe.
My brother is from Wisconsin so we joked that he should brave the Ohio cheese curds. He did not.
After the piggy races we hopped over to the petting zoo, which had tons of cute animals! Some lady randomly bought Ori a cup of carrots to feed to the animals. It was really sweet, but her demeanor made it seem like *I* should have bought carrots for my poor children to give to the animals so she didn’t have to. I don’t know, maybe I was reading into it, but it was kind of a weird interaction and I wasn’t thrilled that she bought a cup of carrots for him, even though I can’t put my finger on exactly why- I guess it was sweet of her and I’m sure she had no ill intentions.
Then, lots more walking over to the chicken barn.
There is a mini flea market (I’m telling you- the state fair has everything haha) and I found this shop that was FULL of t-shirts and hats just like this. I would look at a shirt/hat and think “aww, sweet/beautiful/lovely” and then look at the next one and think “oh gracious!” Honestly, it was entertaining!
The kids were getting antsy to ride rides, so we decided to split our group. Theo and Dan took the kids to get their ride wristbands and do some rides, while my parents and I went over to the Natural Resources Park and tried to find some shade and quiet for my Dad to take a phone call. Well, it was very shaded and very calm/quiet until the entire Ohio State Marching Band came tromping right through hahaha. Needless to say, we needed to go somewhere else to take the phone call haha.
Shoutout to Uncle Dan who took one for the team and was the “accompanied adult” with our littlest rider. Both Theo and I get crazy motion sickness and cannot do ANY rides- I can’t even WATCH the rides without feeling sick.
My parents and I ducked into the Agriculture building, which was new this year. We wandered around and enjoyed the exhibits and seeing some of the baby animals!
The cow was to facilitate training for helping to deliver baby cows. It was actually mechanical and would make contractions, and then you (the vet) had to reach in and “pull” the calf- legs first, of course! It was fascinating! The kids joined us in the Agriculture building, and then we decided to head to the quilts building, but of course ride some rides along the way!
My favorite building of the whole fair is the QUILTS! I just LOVE to see the incredible creativity and vibrant colors. I just LOVE it. I think I appreciate it so much, too, because I spend a lot of time cross-stitching and I know how long projects like this take!! I also know I could never do it! Now, the cross-stitch category- I think I could enter that!
After the quilts building, all of the adults had kind of hit a wall. Bless my Dad who kept up with everyone on a hot day at the state fair in the middle of his chemo treatments! The kids still wanted to ride some rides, so Theo and Uncle Dan took them back to the rides while my parents and I decided to sit on a bench and wait for them. Turns out the tent right in front of us was a game tent. Like, good old fashioned board/card games. They had them set up to play, so we hung out in that tent and played games for about an hour. It was a BLAST. Like, maybe my favorite part of the fair that day? Of course, it wasn’t the main reason to come to the fair but it was just this perfect serendipity of needing somewhere cool, calm and entertaining, but not wanting to give up and go home yet. We loved it! The games we played were: Hues and Clues; Tapple; Blank Slate and Flip 7.
After that, we decided to call it a night and headed to Applebees for dinner! We didn’t get our food until close to 8pm and we were all RAVENOUS. After dinner, we loaded up and headed home! We were SO tired the next day!
Have you ever been to your state fair?
What would be your favorite part- food, rides, quilts, or animals?