Northwest Washington State Fair

It is Fair season! So Amber and I decided to take the kids to the Northwest Washington State Fair this week. It is one of the biggest and nicest in this area. Of course we still had to get our workout in so we loaded up our bikes, bike trailers, accompanying paraphernalia and kids to head up to Bellingham and get some Mountain Biking in before heading up to the fair.

Lucky for us the Wyman's have a seven seater Highlander that has a hitch bike rack to transport bikes. As you can see we were pretty much filled to capacity. No shopping this trip. (wink, wink)
All geared up and ready to go!

Great smiles!

We biked to a lunch place in Bellingham and ate outside on one of Washington's glorious summer days (we have had way too few of these this year!). It is kind of nice taking the bikes and getting front row parking :)!
Ayden was in a very gregarious mood and handing out kisses left and right at the restaraunt. I think she really appreciated all her Mom's hard work during the bike (2008 Amber Wyman tow capacity - at least 80 lbs!).

Hmmm what is going on behind this menu??
We finished up lunch and rode back to the car to pack up and head to the fair.
The kids were sooo excited to see all of the animals. Amber and I made a huge rookie mom mistake and forgot the accessories to turn our bike trailers into strollers so we didn't realize it after our bike ride but our workout was NOT over for the day. In all fairness though the vehicle was well and truly stuffed!

We got to the fair and met up with my sister who took the afternoon off to enjoy the fair. We headed straight to the poultry barn. It was sooo cute to see how excited Ayden was. She definitely is an animal lover. Thank goodness my sister was along because three kids and two mom's equals one pair of arms short! My sister was very helpful and carried Ayden around when we had the boys. Geez, can I tell you all how nice strollers are when the kids are tired and it is hot (warm for you southerners) out.
Ayden really like the poultry barn because she could see right into the cages.
Amber and I were joking around with how much Tracy has rubbed off on us as far as taking a billion picture of everything. Funny we both forgot our strollers but both remembered our cameras! ;-)
Checking out the silly hair doo.
That is a LOT of bacon!
One thing I love about fair's is seeing all the hard working kids taking care of their animals. The barns at this fair are kept absolutely immaculate with round the clock attentance. Some of the 4-H kids would bring the animals over and let our kids pet there animals. The boys liked that but were quite tentative. I of course wanted to buy this little guy, so it is a good thing the car was packed!
This cows name was Ben. Ben is 3500 lbs.!! He was gargantuan in every sense of the word.
They had a maternity ward in the cow barn where this little calf was born four hours earlier.
My favorite cow the Jersey. Oh the little boy is pretty cute too. ;-)
The boys thought the tractors were pretty cool. Ayden just wanted to go see more animals.
"Gee Dad, this would be the perfect tractor for Mom!"
One of the most unique things at this fair versus others that I have been too is the six horse teams they have perform everyday. These are the really, really big draft horses. Very impressive creatures to watch in action.

The kids did really, really good for no naps all day long. Ayden fell asleep as soon as we headed home but the boys were so wound up they did not fall asleep until we were about fifteen minutes from home (of course!). A very different picture at the end of the day won't you say???