State fair

While Greg was in town, we went to Fair Park for this...

where we were greeted by Big Tex...

and surrounded by a sea of people and Art Deco architecture.

Just as one would expect at the State Fair, there were tractors...

hard working farmers...




hungry baby animals...
cute pink piglets...
longhorn (this is Texas)...
really scary ostriches (they were fascinating and frightening and really really big)...
lots of live music...
an auto show...
even trains...
(the sleeping Pullman cars were very interesting)

and people who dance with their dogs...

Gotta love a fair!

The State Fair of Texas is also known as...
Decisions, decisions...

or fried peaches or fried grilled cheese sandwiches or fried chocolate truffles or...?

We went for Texas Fried Pecan Pie...
(thumbs down--too sweet)

and Fried Cheesecake...
(thumbs up--just right and so yummy)

Not everything we ate was deep fat fried.

I partook of the best tamales I've ever had. Thank you, Pedro...

And Greg had the nachos. They were pretty darn awesome. (Every single chip was shaped like Texas.)

Lastly, we headed to the Midway...
so we could ride the Texas Star (the largest ferris wheel in the country)...

Good times. Good memories.

[We thought that the perfect way to follow up a day at the fair would be...a day at Six Flags. (Yes, we're insane.) But since we continue to fail to take our kids to Disney World, we thought we'd take them to the 27th best thing. You are spared pictures--I didn't take my camera--but I will tell you that we had a (somewhat surprisingly) fabulous time. David's 90th percentile in height got him on some of the big, real, grown-up roller coasters. That kid is a good time! My favorite roller coaster quote, "Mom, I try to scream, but laughs keep coming out instead." That's how you know a roller coaster is good! And Mary was a good sport--she let us drag her on the flume three times too many and various other rides until she passed out cold from pure exhaustion.]