Meet Me at the Fair

Ah, cheese curds. Last night we took in the sights, sounds, and smells of the Sioux Empire County Fair. Here in South Dakota, the fair is mostly about the farm animals (go figure), so a good portion of our visit was spent walking through the animal buildings. The babies were angels -- our only challenge was navigating our beast of a stroller around all the cow pies.

Ellie wasn't too keen on the big animals, but she loved the baby kittens and bunnies in the petting zoo. Great....that's one more thing we need at our house, right?

This was just a photo op waiting to happen -- only in South Dakota, people, can you find a handwashing station (outside the petting zoo) in the shape of a cow. The water actually came out of fake udders and into a bucket. I wanted to take a closer shot of the whole apparatus, but I figured that would be kind of weird.

Ellie and Miss Sioux Empire Fair (hey, anyone with a crown is cool in Ellie's world)


Ellie and I getting ready to ride the little roller coaster.

And finally, here's Ellie with the lovely blue dolphin she won at one of those (not at all a rip-off)carnival games. However, the carnie lady who was running the game was nice enough to tell us that Ellie was going to get a big prize no matter which kind of duck she picked out of the tub because she had two baby brothers -- score! I tried to get Ellie to stand next to the carnival lady and take this picture, but no luck. In Ellie's defense, I don't know if I would have wanted to get very close to her myself -- she was a little scary.