Two Days at the Fair in Pictures

One of the first things teachers often assign their new crop of students to write is an essay entitled "What I Did For Summer Vacation". Well, I'm long past those school days, and I don't get a summer vacation, but I did go to the State Fair and I've got a small recap of my activities with Sharon as we bid farewell to summer while walking on the heated, crowded tarmac of the Fairgrounds and the Renaissance Festival. Today I'm showing non-food photos of my first two days at the Fair. Let's start with my "Whoot, Whoot!!!" moment ...

Yes, it's what you might think it is if you're an ice
hockey fan in the US and Canada. It's Lord Stanley's
Cup, and that's me on the left and Sharon on the right.
I actually got to hug the Cup! I was floating on air! I'm
STILL just chuffed about this one. The line wasn't
ridiculous, but I would have stood in it forever just to
touch the Stanley Cup. 

Friday and Saturday are days when Sharon and fly solo during the day. Although DH usually joins us for dinner on Friday night, he passed this time, feeling under the weather and just going right to bed when he got home from work. So he didn't join the two of us until Saturday night when we went to the Foghat free concert (really excellent). Then the three of us spent Sunday at the Fair with Chickie, and on Monday the four of us were at Renaissance Festival together.

One of the major things to do is wander the various buildings where people
are showing work they've produced. This Blue Ribbon winner was a metal
sculpture about the size of a small car. Although I think of it as
"When Pigs Fly", it actually was a flying pig with lederhosen and skiis.
It was probably an accident in the making instead of a flight to freedom. 

The Knitters Guild of MN gathered together to knit lots of pieces. They displayed
a yarn bomb encompassing many images up and down the fencing
along the ramp to the 2nd floor of the Grandstand. This is a very long
span, and they filled it beautifully with lots of funny things.
I love this image - the State Fair's iconic foods encapsulated in yarn. 

The only requirement we have for the four of us is a simple rule: "Anything we buy to eat must be photographed and shared with the others in a text message." It's a vicarious eating experience without the calories, and it allows us to get reviews of foods we might want to try from each other.

On Day Two, Sharon and I made sure to get to all of the various animal
buildings. They are huge structures and have lots of animals from small, like this
adorable bunny here, to large, like the "largest boar" pictured below. There
are barns for cows, sheep and goats, several barns for horses, the swine
barn, and the poultry barn. The Fair started as an agricultural get-together
originally, but it's come a long way since then. 

Here's the "Largest Boar" for this year. Every year they have a winner for
the largest boar, and in the pen next to it, they have a sow with young piglets
for the kiddies to get excited about. Hard to believe the cute little piglets can
grow into monsters like this. 

This time, the winner was "Rocky". We've had boars up to 1600+ pounds in
other years, but 1400 pounds is darned impressive! 

I had a list of six new foods I wanted to try, and of course there were also the staple foods that I had to have again. I managed to have three of the six on my list, so not too bad, The lines were sometimes so long that I said "Nope - no way, no how." I refuse to stand in a line a block long for more than an hour just to eat an overpriced serving of a new food.

So, I finished the extravaganza with a gain of three pounds. Not bad for four days of excess! Tonight is Project Runway, so tomorrow will be the usual one of two posts about that. I'm settling back into my rhythm and autumn is knocking at the door. Time to run out and enjoy the last two weeks of the outdoor pool. Happy Thursday to all!

March Was Meh - Just Sayin'

We're at that in-between time that drives me a little crazy. We're at the junction between winter and spring - today our temps drop back down into the 30's and we'll be shivering again, yesterday I was out and about just wearing my hoodie. It's back to the parka today because I don't like standing outside the gym door waiting for them to unlock while shivering.

If I lose weight because of shivering, I could
skip the elliptical today. Unfortunately, I'm
not that lucky. 

It's also the last day of the month - a month that usually lives up to its "In like a lion, out like a lamb" moniker. It wasn't too bad for us weather-wise, but we had a lot of dreary, cloudy, rainy and snow threatening days. We did get Easter out of the way because it was an early Easter this year, but in general, March was a "meh" month.

It was a month that promised better things and I'm not really sure if March delivered. We started the month with temps in the low to upper 20's and we'll end it with temps in the low to upper 30's. We're supposed to be in the 40's to 50's by this time, but we're regressing instead. We had a trace of snow on the 1st of March but it's been raining over the past week instead, so at least we have no worries about the white stuff.

We filed our income taxes for the business and also received and filed our personal taxes. There's nothing fun about taxes - nothing! We didn't get a chance to go out and do anything or see any fun exhibits, although I did get to see Zootopia and we caught some things on the TV. But culturally, March was rather boring.

April showers bring May flowers - I'm
waiting for them. I want flowering trees,
blue skies and comfortable temperatures. 

April is looking as if it will be more interesting, but months that start with promise can end in disappointment. We'll have to see how we do. I'm just hoping that April will be a better and more positive month than March has been. I really want some positive things to report and some beautiful things to look at. Happy Thursday, all!