Texas State Fair

Well, Deidra got the day off from school to go to the fair. www.bigtex.com if anyone wants to see what the Texas State Fair is all about. All the kids in our school district get the day off to go to it and they get in for free. It started off as a rainy day, but we decided to go anyway. I'm so glad that we did. My mom went with us. We all had the day off of work. Andy took a vacation day to go with us too. Anyway, we left around 8:30 to go get Mom, we ran to the bank, and headed out to Fair Park. Fair Park is a lot like Navy Pier where as all the museums and aquarium, planetarium, and all that is all one campus. Only difference is that it's not on the water down here. :-) Anyway, we got down there around 9:30-10 am and it was raining pretty hard. We went in and hit one of the arts and crafts barns to get out of the rain. Lots of cool stuff to look at. Then, we went into the huge animal farm that they had set up for the kids. Lots of goats, pigs, and they had some unique animals as well. They had a baby giraffe that you could feed, a kangaroo family (mommy, daddy, and baby riding around in mommy's pouch) that we got to pet. At one point, mommy kicked the baby out of the pouch and we got to see him hop around. I didn't get to pet the baby as he was a bit shy and wouldn't come around the people. But, the mommy and daddy let us pet them and I was amazed at how soft they really are. They had zebras too as well as horses and cows. We fed ostriches and emus and buffalo too. Very cool exhibit. We ate some great food and even tried some fried coke. That actually was very good. They fried up some dough that they injected with coke and put warm coke in the bottom of the glass. Then they topped it with whipped cream. Very good! I blew my diet because I wanted to try it, but heck...we only get to do stuff like that every once in awhile. We visited a lot of arts and crafts exhibits, played a couple games to win a stuffed animal for D, rode the ferris wheel as a family, and Deidra rode the kiddie coaster caterpillar. We walked through a lot of exhibits, saw the auto show, visited a few museums, and saw the cow milking process. Visited some cool stores and watched the marine corp drum and bugle corp perform. That brought tears to my eyes. Afterwards, we talked with the fellow french horn players for a little while and then we went and got some dinner, watched the parade, and walked around a bit more before heading home. It was an aewsome day and the rain didn't last long at all. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the rain apparently kept some people away as the fair wasn't very busy. Steady, but not overly overcrowded. Deidra got a new pink cowgirl hat to go with her pink suede cowgirl boots and a Tinkerbell purse and wallet. She made out like the bandit. We all had a great day and I am so thankful of the time that we got to spend together.