Great MN Get Together 2019

In no particular order, I'm going to just drop a handful of photos right here from our MN State Fair trip. Once again, we joined 150,000 people in gorgeous weather to eat our way through the fair. We took in the sights, explored some new activities and of course went back to the old ones. It was a full day, 12+ hours of fun :)

 

Butterfly Garden was Sidney and Lincoln's favorite again. They could spend hours inside that building, letting butterflies land on them and coaxing more and more to join their shirt.

 

 

Cheese curds could very well be my favorite fair food

 

Lincoln and Sidney tried alligator bites for the first time.

 

Sidney chomping on corn on the cob, because next year she will likely be sporting braces and not able to enjoy it as much.

 

Ryan loves himself a scotch egg, but doesn't get to eat as much of it since the girls also love it!

 

Although Ryan thinks buying cookies at the fair is a complete waste of money, the rest of us completely disagree and therefore, savored every bite of our 3/4 baked yummy deliciousness.

 

I love the colors of the Ferris Wheel.

 

 

We found this lady last year, she sells snow cones for just $1.

It's the best bargain at the fair!

 

Sidney and I rode across the fair together on the chair rides. She giggles every year as we go over the buildings where people scatter their under garments on the roofs! Quite the sight :)

 

 

 

Three kiddos at the State Fair is no easy feat, but we had more smiles than tears and more kind words than rude ones so I'll take it as a win. 

 

We always look forward to spending the day wandering the state fair grounds, despite that it means the end of summer is very near.

Great MN Get Together 2018

We switched it up a little this year and took on the MN State Fair on opening day.
Us and 125,000 other people. Record-breaking attendance this year!, but with rain coming the following few days, we were happy to enjoy the fair in perfect conditions.  

We had so much fun once again and spent 10 hours eating our way through the fair. 

These photos are in  no particular order but rather a way to look back on the day and remember just how jam packed full it was. 

We fibbed a little and sent the kiddos into the butterfly house on their own. They would gather up their butterflies and come over to the window to show us all of their "friends". 

As we meandered around, Lincoln noticed this 5 seater bike and suddenly was friends with the UCare man who promptly told us to all climb aboard and he took our picture. 

The list of foods we consumed is rather ridiculous long. But it was all so good and we just had so many taste buds to satisfy!
At one point, we noticed Lincoln hadn't eaten much, mostly because the girls would devour anything before he had a chance. So we begged him to pick something. 

A pronto pup was just what he needed :) 

A couple of races down the Giant Slide!

Even with braces, Regan insisted she could eat sweet corn. Thankfully she shared with me and Sidney. Ryan calls this type of food "filler" (aka: a waste of calories) but we were all delighted to share a few bites. 

A trip to the fair is never complete without fries (and cheese curds...not pictured). 

Lincoln wouldn't let us leave without going on some rides....much as the rest of us would've liked to skip over this whole area. He was in his glory going on these silly rides! 

The last treat were snow cones. This deserves its own post. But the short version: Sidney was hell bent on getting a snow cone. So we walked around for a solid 15 minutes searching for a snow cone place. I wanted to give up, we all wanted to give up, and finally we found one. 

This lovely lady makes snow cones for $1. 

Even more wonderful, Lincoln asked for orange but she was out.....however, she dug behind her counter for the orange flavoring and handed him an orange snow cone. 

At that price, and that sweet customer service, Ryan couldn't resist but to give her a little more business and opted for his own! 

Between the chocolate dipped bananas, the Irish Tater tots, Nitro ice cream, Scotch eggs, famous Martha's cookies, caramel apples, steak tacos and everything in between, we were pleased as pie to see how many steps we put in that day! 

We look forward to the fair every year, and I'm pretty sure it's the food that lures us back every year! 

MN State Fair 2017

As per tradition, we headed to the Great MN Get together once again this year. I like to think that we experience more than food, but it seems to be that we continue to simply eat our way through the fair year after year. Sure we see animals, and shows, take in some tunes and look at exhibits, but the food is really what draws us there. 

Lincoln just loved the fair this year. We started off with a Sky Glide ride and loved every minute of it. This was new to me (and him) and we enjoyed seeing the fair from above. Plus I'm really glad we got to do something new! We also took in the dog-dive show this year. 

The kids went on a few rides (thankfully not nearly as many as year's past....let's face it, I'm over it when it comes to the fair). As far as I'm concerned (taking safety into consideration here too) Valleyfair is for rides, the State fair is not! But I obliged and we spent some time at the kidway. 

Ryan and all the kiddos went down the giant slide, something I tend to try most years as well but opted to take pictures this year instead :) I loved seeing all of their smiling faces coming down, almost better than being on the ride itself is watching their reactions. 

Lincoln is prone to accidents lately and he wiped out pretty hard, skinning up his elbows. Luckily his timing was perfect, he managed to trip over his own feet right next to the First Aid building so we quickly bandaged him up and were on our way. 

....to find more food. Seriously, we eat a lot but I managed to come home feeling hungry! Cheese curds, peanut logs, toasted almonds, french fries, turkey sandwich, Scotch eggs, big pickles, hot dogs and pronto pups....that just names a few of the items sampled by our crew :) YUM!!

Great MN Get together!

As per our usual routine, we headed over to the State Fair on the second day of the fair. It was a lot of fun and we were blessed to be joined by both sets of grandparents as well as Hope. We had so much fun going on rides, eating food, people watching, eating food, and taking in all that the fair has to offer.

Ryan's sole request was to find the massive tornado (representing the number of bags thrown away every 5 seconds instead of recycled). We spent quite a bit of time exploring the Eco building exhibits. 

My mom, Hope and I got our blood sugar checked....we won't talk about results ;) Blame the food, right!?

We went on loads of rides!

My mom and Hope took the girls on the sky-ride, which totally blew me away. My mom, the one who barely mustered up enough nerve to climb the Eiffel Tower after we traveled all the way to Paris went on the sky-ride. My mom, the one who's heart skips a beat when anyone leans over a railing went on the sky-ride! Oh the things you do for a grandchild :)

We saw animals, including the big pig. The really big pig and his...errr, well, see for yourself. lol. Grandma Sheri sent Sidney my way when she asked her "what's between his legs??" For those wondering, I told her the truth :)

Lincolns face cracked us up. He spotted the pig in my phone as I snapped the picture. His expression says it all! 

We ate lots of food, and I cried a few tears. While I felt that we did an amazing job of finding safe foods for Lincoln, it made me so sad to have fear as we walked around, careful to avoid any possibility of a reaction. When he fell asleep we darted to the Cheese Curds and the girls ate some ice cream. This is our reality, and it breaks my heart. I stumbled across a booth set up for (children) with food allergies. As I chatted with the family manning the booth  my mom came over to listen. I introduced her and jokingly commented that "grandparents, the ones most at risk for causing a reaction" (though I know my mom is overly cautious and won't even touch an allergen food when she babysits!). Well, it was good for her to hear first hand, this family admitted that "both sets of grandparents have caused" their little guy a trip to the ER. YIKES! So now I have more fear. Even so, we found Lincoln a plain hot dog (not exactly healthy) and he ate the ENTIRE thing. Later for dinner he ate a whole hamburger too! This boy can eat I tell you!

In the end, we had a grand ole' time once again and will spend the next 364 days looking forward to next year!

Thanks for a great day! 

Great MN get together!

As per tradition, we headed over to the MN State Fair on day #2 of the fair. The sun stayed hidden behind the clouds, and we were very thankful for that. The curls in Sidney's hair was proof of the humidity, and the sun would have done us all in. But with the clouds as protection, we were able to have a delightful time. 

Sid won 2 free tickets from a drawing at the public library and if it wasn't for her, we would have forgotten those 2 tickets hanging on the fridge back at home. Thankfully we were only blocks from home when she said "did we bring my tickets?". Opps. Good catch sweet girl. 

Once we were inside, we ate to our hearts content and let the girls try out some new activities (new to them anyway). We decided to skip the 3 hours at the kidway and only did a few rides there. So this year, it was Ye Old Mill and the Tubo Jumper instead. 

Our daredevil Regan requested this ride at the Midway. She's nuts and we told her she could go, but would be riding alone because neither Ryan nor I were willing to go on with her! 

She went. Alone. No problems. Although admitted while standing in line that she was feeling a wee bit nervous. 

Awww, a selfie at the State Fair

He wasn't so sure about those piggy ears, or that big giant pig but he loved seeing the horses and lambs and really got excited when he heard a loud "BAAAAA"!

On a much needed rest break, Sidney got Lincoln cracking up as she played a quick game of Peek A BOO! 

He's so easy to please that baby of ours. 

And then it was time for round 2 of the Giant Slide, and it was 

Biggest kid...

Followed by middle kid....

And lastly grumpy kid....

Just kidding, although he looks grumpy, he was not at all upset. 

I stood up at the end and his legs were kicking away in excitement! 

Thanks Grandma Sheri and Grandpa Arnie for a fun filled MN State Fair day!