A day at the L.A. County Fair

So where do I begin? I had a “crazy mommy brain free” moment. I forgot to get a few details before we left.

A good friend of mine had free tickets to the fair so I snatched them up & thought “family day” & it’s free! I let Colty skip preschool today & packed up the kiddos & the car with snacks, blankies, bottles & Elmo DVD’s. We left the house at 9 am. sharp as it takes about 1.25 hours to get there. By the end of the drive the chickens are restless. Colt has asked up about 20 times “are we there yet?”,  Jade is screaming, she needs a diaper change. We arrive at the gates at 10:18 am.

No ones moving. There are cars lined up in front of us, cars are piling in behind us. Justin then asks me…”what time does the fair open?”.  My heart stops a beat & I say… um, I think 9 or 10. So he calls the number on our ticket & the recording says it opens at 12 noon. Here we are trapped in a line of cars & the fair doesn’t open for another 1.75 hours! Screaming baby, diaper change, & we’re stuck in the car for another 1.75 hours?!…. You’ve got to be kidding me.

Then to top it all off….. we have a thunder storm. Yes… you heard me right. A bloody thunder storm. Mind you,  here in So.Cal we haven’t had rain in 8 months. It’s sunny & blue skies ALWAYS. We’re all wearing shorts & sunscreen & it is pouring rain with lightening & thunder. We somehow manage to shimmy our way out of the line of unimformed fair goers & turn around without ripping the axels off of the car (if that’s even possible). So what does a family do with a screaming tired baby & a bored toddler? We go to Target.

After a quick diaper change in the front seat, chicken #2 falls asleep in the car on the way there & transfers easily to the stroller. Meanwhile Chicken #1 has a smile on his face thinking about all of the Toy Story toys he can play with when he gets there. We arrive & he happily trots over to the toy section with Daddy in hand. As for Mama? Well Mama then heads over to the book section & relaxs a couple notches while crazy the baby chicken aka chicken #2 dozes in her stroller. We finally make it to the fair at 12:10 pm. Yippee!

Much to daddy’s chagrin, Colt’s main focus of the fair is the carnival games. They are ridiculously expensive & the fun is over is about 2.5 seconds, but it’s so worth it to see the little chap with dart in hand & a concentrated look on his face while he aims…throws… & wins! He won a bunch of stuffed toys which he was so thrilled about, especially the big blue whale & curious george. He even took them all to bed with him.My favorite part of the fair was of course the petting zoo. Gotta love a petting zoo full of baby animals especially when there are alpacas!



Look at those beautiful brown eyes.







Next we headed over to the Jurassic Park exhibit. Colt was excited to see the Dinos as we had just seen “Walking with the Dinosaurs” a few weeks back.



We stopped off at the Mexico exhibit, had a ride on the super slide & the crazy chicken train.







Then it was time to say our farewell to the 2010 LA County Fair & head back home before we hit Friday LA traffic.



It was a hot & muggy, but very fun family day! I expected both chickens to pass out on the long drive home, but only Colt managed to sleep. Maybe it was because he was surrounded by all of his pals.



Until next time…….