our state fair

What does a disheartened pregnant woman do when she finds out that it could be another week or so before delivery? Well, this one decided she and her family should go to the opening day of the Georgia State Fair. I didn't realize it when we went, but it was dollar day, so it only cost us $2 to get in (I had a coupon for BOGOFree admission, but that still would have been $5) which was nice! It was about 92 degrees on Tuesday, but with the nice breeze, it wasn't completely unbearable. We did a lot of walking, which probably did nothing to onset labor, but at least I got some exercise.

Aubie and David got a good spot to see Robinson's Racing pigs.
And they're off!


Here's Aubie's sad little pig (the guy picked Aubie to cheer it on--each race he picked someone from the audience for each pig) who decided that it didn't want to race. Especially not a biathlon (running and swimming this time). The poor dear seemed a bit scared of the water. He kind of made this sighing motion when they finally got him to get in the water--like, "Oh, dear, I knew it'd come to this eventually!"

This is me holding an invisible deck of cards. Yeah, they're really there, you just can't see them.

Here's the other volunteer picking an invisible card out of my hand. I'm not really sure if I missed the point or what, but when the magician let me pick the one flipped-over card out of the visible deck, it was the 2 of clubs--the same card that the man had picked out of the invisible deck. It was supposed to be a sort of mind reading trick, I think. (Does everyone just automatically think of the 2 of clubs when he or she thinks of an invisible card?)
This is Aubie holding my ring under a handkerchief. Of course, my ring disappeared after he did a few little finger waves over it. Aubie looked a bit taken aback that it disappeared, but was amazed at the "magic" just the same.
OK, the trick is, my ring is now gone, and he keeps giving Aubie quarters to put into the ring machine. He asks me if I want to trade my ring for the cheapo things inside the little plastic bubble containers and of course I say no (even though this is just a temporary ring from Walmart until my fingers aren't swollen anymore).
Well, on the third quarter Aubie puts into the machine, guess what comes out? My ring! I really cannot figure out how he did this, but then I can never figure out any magic tricks. Sometimes I just prefer to say, "Its magic!" Then other times, I just get amazed at how much quicker other people's fingers move than mine do. Either way, it was a great trick. And lest you think that he switched them as he was handing me the bubble container to get my ring out, he had said earlier that Aubie might be too young to help with this one. A slightly older child could have looked at the ring coming out of the machine and said, "Mommy, that's not your ring". (Also, he got her to check each time before giving her a quarter to make sure there was nothing in the door.)
For being such good volunteers, I got my ring back, and Aubie won a cute red cordouroy teddy bear. Lest you think we were just the prettiest, cutest things in the audience and that's why we kept getting picked, there were only like 10 of us watching, so our odds were pretty good.
Aubie did not like this ride at all, poor dear. It would have been fine if it had just spun around, but it went up high and spun a pretty fast circle for a three year old. This is once the ride was over and she is looking mistrustingly at the poor carnie after he spun the car around for me to take a better picture. It was only one ticket, and we told her she could only ride one ride so it made me sad that this ride was it. (Tickets are a dollar a piece if you don't buy a bunch of them.)

After our sad ride experience, this was just what we needed to get spirits back up. Just a dollar to Paint the Pony, and all proceeds go to help abused children. Aubie really enjoyed using her creative talents to "beautify" this kind creature.

I helped her with the "A", but the rest is all her own artwork.
I could digress into a social commentary on the state of the state fair these days, but this post has taken me a day and a half already (I am actually posting the day after the date at the top), so I will save that for another time. I tell you one thing, I WILL be entering a craft or two next year--with the slim pickins that were there, almost every entry had a ribbon of some sort. I hope have a blue ribbon of my own next year.