A Fair Affair

On Labor Day we decided to take a trip to the LA County Fair in Pomona. We had heard that admission was only $1 each that day. We had heard that it is quite an affair, so we had to check it out for ourselves! Let me just say, it was awesome! It blew our own Date Festival, and even the Del Mar Fair, which we both really enjoy, out of the water!

It is huge and there is so much to do! It seemed more like a state than a county fair.

The first thing that we saw there was quite unexpected. We saw the "Our Body" exhibit which featured real human bodies. At first it is pretty creepy, but after you get past that thought, it is absolutely fascinating! What amazing creations our bodies are!

Of course, there were less morbid things to do there as well.

We made a visit to the junior arts building. It was a medieval theme and there was a ton of stuff for the kids to do there.

Like dress up like knights.

There was a pretend farm where the kids could pick some veggies...

And a medieval kitchen where they could cook their meals.

And the ones who didn't eat their veggies got sent to the stocks.

They also got to climb Repunzel's hair.

Actually, the "tower" was horizontal for picture taking. Pretty funny.

Nate had only one thing he wanted from a day a the fair - a turkey leg! So we gave him his wish. Everybody crowded around to tear it apart like a flock of buzzards. Not me. It reminded me too much of the body exhibit we had just seen. No thanks.

The fair has all kinds of fun areas. One of my favorite was the Heritage Village where the kids got to step back in time and do and see many traditional trades and crafts, like panning for gold, watching a blacksmith work,

and carding, spinning, and weaving wool.

One lady handmade these little animals from her sheep's wool. I thought they were so cute, and couldn't leave without buying that sweet little lamb with the purple bow who was just begging me to take him home to put in my Easter sheep collection.

There was also a little house set up for the kids to try their hand a quilting on a real vintage quilt. They loved this and I had to drag them away!

Another shop made homemade soaps, and at another you could watch broom maker make brooms. Dennis was so impressed that he bought this little whisk broom.

The boys helped make a really fun rad rug. I wanted to take that home!

There was also a tiny little school house.

We watched a traveling medicine man show. He was filthy and gross, and when he asked Luke to come up and help, I cringed. I had to remind myself that it was only a costume. He was a little too convincing.

He claimed he was a rain maker, and he needed Luke to help him make rain by wearing this feather-covered jacket and top hat while banging an Indian drum and doing a rain dance. He was pretty darn cute up there! But a few times when he was doing his dance with his face covered, he almost shuffled off the front of the stage. The folks on the front row almost had a heart attack when they jumped up to stop him from falling off.

He was so cute!

It couldn't be a fair without cinnamon rolls! These had blueberry topping.

One of the coolest exhibits was a huge building full of life-size animated dinosaurs. It was really cool!

They moved and roared, and the kids loved it!

They even made it look like a dinosaur had broken through a window and escaped with broken glass, rubble, and yellow caution tape. You could see the dinosaurs just outside. Pretty funny.

At the end of the exhibit we saw a real paleontologist do an educational show about dinosaurs. it was actually very interesting. I learned a lot.

Another area that really captured the boys' attention was the Pirate area. We saw some pirate acrobats do some incredible things high up in the air. They got to play with cannons and lock themselves in a pirate jail.

Nathan even found himself a nice wench.

A beautiful day!

Derek about died when we walked into one of the commercial buildings and there were about 30 smashed penny machines! Derek has been collecting smashed pennies for a quite a while now and has quite a collection already. But this was like hitting pay dirt! Thirty retired machines from all over the West. He was literally jumping up and down and giggling he was so giddy!
We all got busy pressing pennies for Derek until we got them all!

Pennies from heaven!!!

There circus area was also fun.

Photo ops galore!

Then came the Gypsy Camp

where was was a very interesting and informational reptile show. I learned a lot and the kids got to touch a bunch of snakes and an alligator, which of course, the boys thought was great!

Dylan got it into his head that he wanted to ride a bull. He actually did a pretty great job. He kept holding on, so the guy kept making the bull go faster. He gathered quite a crowd of onlookers.

Buy the time we were done, we were so tired of walking. I felt like my legs were going to fall off at the hip! Caleb had been bagging all day to use one of these foot massagers, and finally we let him have his chance. I was so jealous!

What a great fair! We had done so much and there was still a bunch of stuff we never got to. We are definitely going to have to do this fair again!