Our annual pilgrimage to the Minnesota State Fair. This year we were all a bit crankier than usual, but that didn’t stop us from staying for nearly 12 hours (and 17,000 steps, according to my trusty fitbit).

Fair food included (basically covering all of our meals today):

• hot waffle ice cream sandwiches (just as good as last year!)
• chicken in waffle cones (another favorite from last year)
• mini-donuts
• strawberry rhubarb milkshake from the dairy barn
• hot dogs and pronto pups (verifying that regular corn dogs beat pronto pups)
• samosas from the midtown global market
• gyros from holy land
• cotton candy

Favorite discovery this year was the play area outside the Eco Experience. Sand + water + building supplies = infinite fun.

We thought we’d kick things off with hot waffle ice cream sandwiches.

Divine.

Seriously.

Puppet show. Kinda weird this time, but the kids enjoyed it.

Ram

Lamb

Rabbits

Piglets

Griffin loves this ride.

Last year he was nervous.

This year he had no qualms.

Maggie on her wheels.

Maggie riding a whale (or something).

Carousel

Carousel

Pilot

Examining the map

Pronto pup

Eco superheroes!

A quieter moment in the agriculture building.

My favorite seed art of the year.

And a close second.

In the skyride

Happy skyrider

As a postscript, in the interest of keeping things real, I should mention that shortly after putting this post together, Griffin puked all over his bed. Besides being gross, it was a good reminder that fair food, though fun, isn’t really what a growing body wants.

(But man, those waffle sandwiches were awesome.)