Balloon Fiesta 2012

This year we decided to go to the Balloon Fiesta on a weekday morning. We got up early on Thursday morning and headed to the park. We got there just in time to get on the field, eat some breakfast burritos and start to watch the Special Shape balloons take off. There weren't as many balloons as the Mass Ascension Days, but there were a lot of fun shapes to look at. The kids wandered around collecting balloon cards. We dropped off Nathan at preschool on the way home (just as his bus was leaving for their field trip to the Air Museum) and then we got home in time for the kids to change and get to school by 10 AM (just a couple of hours late). It was a perfect morning - not too cold or windy. We were lucky we went when we did because that weekend the weather got pretty cold and wet.

State Fair 2012

I signed up with a friend of mine who organizes a home school group to get into the fair each year. When you go with the group you get in free. I decided to pull Caelan, Ben and Megan out of school for the day and we all spent a fun day at the fair. The day we went last year was super crowded, especially all the kids events, but this year was perfect. We had a great time: *Climbing and exploring all sorts of military vehicles (it was Military Day) *Watching the Pig races *Getting a milk shake from the dairy *Watching the White Lion show *Climbing the rock wall (Ben was a little monkey and went up twice in flip flops, Caelan also made it to the top, even when it got kind of hard for her, and Megan made it about half way) *Seeing lots of goats and sheep and pigs and cows *Going into the petting zoo and feeding the animals *Exploring the kids section, "Old McDonalds Farm" *Having fun in the "Agventure Land": corn box, riding little tractors, making coffee filter painted flowers, saddling a fake horse, making your own scarecrow, etc. *All the kids got to ride one ride (Megan, Ben and Caelan all went on the ferris wheel and Nathan rode the motorcycles). *Checked out the craft winners (the kids loved the Lego displays and a couple of the wood carvers made the kids wood owls) *Ate cotton candy and freshly made donuts - good fair food. I honestly didn't think we would last so long (I thought for sure one or more kid would have a melt down at some point), but we were there until after 4 PM and we all left happy.