Iowa State Fair

Since the first day we moved here we have been hearing so much about how awesome the Iowa State Fair is in Des Moines and how we just absolutely have to go! So we decided we better see for ourselves :) Mark happened to be off the day it opened (and it was an unbelievable 75 degree day!!) so we decided to be crazy people and go on opening day. {to preface... I'm not really a "fair" kind of person. I didn't grow up going to the fair so I don't really feel any sort of nostalgia going there like a lot of people and honestly I think it mostly goes back to my freshman year at Baylor when I took my seventh grade small group girls to the Waco fair and was trying to be a super cool leader (since I had just met them) and went on all the rides with them and ate all the nasty food and had a blast with them but then was sick for days afterward haha so... I wasn't super thrilled about going but thought it might be fun to let R see all the animals and maybe eat a corn dog...} 

so... thats exactly what we did! and we had a blast! It met up to all the expectations that people had been telling us, for sure! It was unbelievably clean. It really didn't seem that crowded. We stayed away from the rides - even though the only fit Reeser threw was to ride on the teacups ha! I think she was mainly crying because I told her she wasn't tall enough. :( through her tears she kept saying "I'm tall mommy" maybe daddy can take her on that next year. There were an insane amount of farm animals. Reese could tell you all about it. "Remember mommy!" The pigs were getting a bath. The sheep were getting haircuts. The "cowgirls" were showing their horses in some sort of competition. There were bunnies and chickens and roosters and HUGE boars and cows... etc. Little Reese was LOVING it. After getting over the shock of how much the food cost, we went all out and got fresh squeezed lemonade, corn dogs, fries and even fried oreos - which were actually really good! but no way could we eat more than one! gah lee. oh and we found these incredible little donuts that our friend told us to look for and i'm not kidding that they were maybe the BEST thing I've ever put in my mouth. unreal. we might have gone back for a second bag before we left ha! and maybe I really wanted to go again on half price day just to run in and get some more donuts and come back out but my hubs declared that was crazy. (they only sell them at the fair once a year) I guess I'll have to wait until next year and you better believe I'll be the first one in line. now that my mouth is watering ... here are some iphone pics. Such a fun family outing :). This is for sure a new Iowa summer tradition for the Mason family.

oh yeah... some artist does this every year and its like the big thing to see. She makes a cow sculpted out of butter. yes, BUTTER. weird. but sorta cool i guess? how does someone ever get started doing this? ha. and its always a surprise what other characters she does. this year was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. and yes, we waited in line to see it. ha. might not have to do that next year.