2012 Kendall County Fair

The first weekend of August was the County Fair.  It is something we look forward to each year.  Being the incredibly mean parents we are, we decided that the kids don’t get to go on the rides at the county fair.  We let Vince do it last year at a different fair and it is just too expensive.  We would rather take them to Six Flags or Disney to go on rides, the rides are better at those places and it would be more fun.  Vince was not very happy about this decision, but he eventually got over it.

Joel and the chickens

Saturday evening we headed to the fair.  A bad storm had gone through in the afternoon when I was on my way home from work and we figured the fairgrounds might be wet, but not a big deal.  When we got there we realized the storm had been pretty bad.  The power was out at the fairgrounds, a local elevator lost its grain leg and a bin, several people we know had trees down and damage to buildings.  Most of which we were hearing rumors about while we were at the fair and saw with our own eyes on Sunday.  We were lucky enough that we didn't have any damage at our house or the main farm.

Damaged grain bin

Saturday night was pretty low key at the fair and we mostly visited with friends and saw the livestock that was at the fair.   Joel loved the chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, bunnies, and sheep.  He wanted to touch a cow and was mad I wouldn’t let him.  A friend of ours had cows there and was nice enough to let the boys pet a calf and by then Joel didn’t care that much anymore and climbing on the bleachers with Vince looked like more fun than petting a calf.  We did get to see my nieces 4-H projects.  Kristine got Grand Champion for her visual arts and also her corn plant also got Grand Champion!  She chose to take her visual arts to the state fair and did very well.  Karoline did a visual arts project and showed her rabbit.  She did well too!  It was fun to see their projects.

  

Kristine's visual art project

 

Sunday after church we went back to the fair so Vince could be in the pedal pull.  He was very excited and so was Brad.  Vince’s weight class was for 30-40 lb. kids.  Vince only weighs 33 lbs.  He didn’t get very far.  He was not happy!  When he came over to me afterwards he said (with tears in his eyes) “How come everyone is stronger than me?”  I felt so bad for the poor kid!  He tried as hard as he could but his little legs just couldn’t get that tractor to go very far.  Later I asked him why he stopped pedaling and he said “the wheels just stopped turning and I couldn’t go anywhere!”  Brad is ready to start a training program for Vince so he can do better next year.  Brad isn’t competitive at all ;)

Vince doing the pedal pull