What CAN'T Be Fried?

Today Ryan, Oliver and I went down to the State Fair. It's pretty clear that the reason most people go to State Fair is for the food, "fried whatever" is definitely the main attraction. The rides, the 4-H competitions, even the demolition derbies and tractor pulls play second fiddle to fried dough, fried Twinkies, fried Oreos, fried cheeseburgers, even fried Coca-Cola (now, I thought I had seen everything!)

We loved this picture of the American flag waving above the fried food concession stand. In case you think I'm being a snob, when it comes down to it, we love fair food too.

Here's what we ate:

• lemonade shake-ups
• 1 corn dog
• BBQ chicken (me)
• BBQ ribs (Ryan)
• onion rings
• roasted corn on the cob
• more lemonade
• soy milk (Oliver apparently doesn't yet have a taste for fair food)

Here's what we didn't eat (but sort of wish we did)

• kettle corn (strangely in short supply here)
• NC State University Creamery ice cream (line way too long)
• italian or polish sausage (smells SO good...but sort of scary, too)
• funnel cakes (because we'll have to wait a whole year for our next opportunity)

So, we also checked out all the livestock (love those little lambs and piglets) and the vegetable and baked goods competitions. Next year I am TOTALLY entering something!! I know I could get at least an "Honorable Mention" in the muffins or refigerator cookie categories, but I'm not going for "Honorable Mention", it's the blue ribbon or bust, baby!

In other news... as I was writing this Oliver used the potty for the first time. Ryan had just given him a bath and he walked up to his little potty and sat down and peed...we are thrilled, he is clearly a genius.

Here we are in front of some seriously huge pumpkins. The winning pumpkin was more than 1100 pounds.



Although we had fun at State Fair, it just wasn't as much fun as last year in Virginia. We had such an awesome time with some of our good Richmond Branch friends, so I wanted to post some of those old pictures here too. We went to the lawnmower races, which were awesome and we DID try deep fried Oreos (somehow not as good as plain old Oreos).

Lawn mower racing is truly a sport for the 21st Century
Mike and Sally Russell, Rachel and Dave Cordon, Megan and Tyler Williams
They had strange consessions too...how do they get spaghetti on a stick??