You have waited with abated breath while I slowly churned out a Part 2 of our County Fair experience this year. I know you have. Day 2 was a bit less crazy since we had survived the previous day's bombardment of check-in and judging.
First Thing in the morning we run in to take care of our little calf. It's show day so she is going to need a bath. There were quite a few bucket calves this year which means everyone was trying to wash their calves at once. Have you ever watched little kids give calves a bath? Out of the gate is the hilarity of just getting the calf to the wash area and getting it tied up. A few get loose, a few end up tied too loosely and won't hold still. It's all good entertainment but agonizing for a parent.
A bath takes a lllooonnnggg time. First the only part of the calf that actually gets clean is the back. And yes...every square inch of that calf needs cleaned. The white spots must actually appear white (we may have picked a calf without a lot of white on purpose). The hooves must actually be clean. But for goodness sakes, don't get any water in the ears. They will droop for days. Finally the soap must be cleaned off the belly completely. This is Malissa's Achilles heal.
Malissa has had a bucket calf before so she doesn't do too bad. But the problem is before us. We can't get in to give Lollipop her bath so what to do?
We took off for the horse barn.
It didn't work perfect because the hitching post was made for horse that couldn't walk underneath but the calf managed to become clean so we could run home quick to round up the rest of the Apple Dumpling Gang.
Back in town (I'm really glad we only live about 6 miles away) it's show time for Malissa. Probably courtesy of a last name starting with "D" she is the first one in the ring. Once again I am glad she has done this before. Her calf was very nervous and didn't behave the best. She kept leaning on Malissa and knocking herself out of line. But Malissa did a good job of setting her back up again. After everything was tabulated Malissa went home with a blue which made her very happy! We are proud of the hard work she has put in caring for her calf and learning everything she needed to know!
So what is left but mostly the fun. The first 2 shots are from Saturday night and the last is Sunday. The fair is experimenting with having companies bring in assorted inflatables and fun activities. This first one shows Malissa trying out the bull riding. Just so you know, Megan also tried this and completely refused to allow me to take pictures. Oh well, no blackmail pictures of her.
Saturday evening also had karaoke. My girls thought this may possibly be the most awesome thing ever invented. They were the first to troupe up and pick out a song to sing. Guess which song they had to sing...and if you didn't guess Let It Go from Frozen then you are living on the dark side of the Moon.
A different company brought out activities for Sunday evening. Lots of bounce houses, obstacle courses and even a train to ride. We took in the parade and then came back straight away to participate. This is Karla's solution for the put-put golf.
Later that evening John took the older girls over to take their (the last) shift at the concession stand. Apparently they were crazy busy and kept it open later than planned because people just kept coming. I hope the fair had a successful year because I know that my kids all enjoyed themselves and had a great time!
