the day my son ate an entire funnel cake by himself

Yesterday morning, we joined up with our favorite Tarheels, Sarah and Lauren, for a few hours of NC State Fair festivities. It was a whirlwind introduction to the fair, but we hit some of the highlights, missed the rain by minutes, and can now say that we have taken part in (and thoroughly enjoyed!) this apparent rite of passage. Here’s a short synopsis of our morning in pictures…

Matt and Carson hopped on the helicopter ride, but as they were preparing for take off…Mary Grace decided she wanted to join! I stayed behind, having sworn off all state fair rides for the rest of my life during my traumatic ride on The Zipper at the VA State Fair in middle school. Seriously, I haven’t been right since.The next ride Carson chose were the monster trucks. It seems here that Matt was sufficiently enjoying himself as well.
While Matt and Sarah watched one of their students clog, Lauren and I took the kiddos to see the animals. Though the milking cow was “closed”, Lauren sweet talked their way through to see the cow’s cuteness close up. Carson got scared and refused to have anything to do with said cow… meanwhile, Lauren contained herself very well as she got up close and personal with the cow’s tongue. This was by far my favorite part of the morning. I love farm animals. Like really really love them. Like I almost cried when I saw that a few of the cows and pigs had been sold to Harris Teeter and Neese’s Sausage. I really wanted to fling open all of their cages and free them from the butchers hands once and for all… until I realized I would never make a good PETA person, nor did I have time to be handcuffed.And then, behold the funnel cake. I kid you not, Carson devoured the entire thing… apart from some bites from Mary Grace (as evidenced by her cute little fingers reaching over in the picture). Needless to say, his naptime was more like a “jumping on the bed and bouncing off the walls” time.