Each year in mid-September, Kelley begins to get all excited about the cool weather and the events of fall.  High on her list is the Georgia National Fair that is held in Perry.  The closer it gets, the more excited she becomes.  It’s simply amazing to me how different I am.  I’m completely left-brained about the whole thing:

We have to pay how much to get in?  The won’t even eat all their food.  The rides aren’t safe and they’re too expensive.  The girls will get a disease from the animals. Are you sure I need to go?  So how much are we expecting to spend?  We’ll only be able to stay a couple of hours and then they’ll fall asleep in the car.  Are you sure this is a good idea?

Each year, we have the same discussion.  She talks about the joys and the benefits while I harp on the pains and the annoyances.  This year was no exception.  Last night, just like the previous 5 years, I found myself standing in front of the clock tower, surrounded by the flashing lights and local bands.  The selling point is always “We do this for the girls.”

One of the first things that became apparent is that Ladybug is too independent for her little diapers.  She demanded to get out of the wagon and screamed that she be allowed to “walk” (which is to be interpreted as “run as fast as I can in every direction”).  Luckily, attendance was pretty low, so we gave her a little freedom…but only a little.  She seemed to be OK with the food, and the animals were fun to look at for about 10 seconds.  However, her favorite events were a dirty water puddle that she stomped in and a trash truck.  No, not a special truck made of trash, just an old flatbed truck off to the side that workers throw trash in.

Butterfly, on the other hand, knew exactly what the fair was about.  She wanted to ride the rides and eat the funnel cake.  While Kelley let Ladybug march around, I took Butterfly over to find the rides.  When I saw the prices, I though “$2 per ride!? Are you kidding me?  They only last 45 seconds!“  Butterfly reached up and grabbed my hand and said “Daddy, look at Dumbo.  He’s so cute.  Can we ride him?“  My right-brained thinking faded away faster than the money in my wallet.  We rode the dumbo ride,…then the spinning dragons…and then we did an obstacle-course thingy that ended with a big slide at the end.  (Later that evening, Butterfly confided in me that the big slide was her favorite part of the fair.)

After the rides, we needed to spend a little more money.  The little ones chomped away on pizza, Kelley shared her roasted corn with Ladybug, and I got a hot dog.  Oh, how I don’t miss the fair food.  It felt like a brick was in my stomach.  We used up a few of the calories by visiting the petting zoo, but the evening was getting later.  To end the night, we got rid of that nasty-fair-food feeling in our stomachs the only way we knew how:

Here the other pictures that I took with my cell phone: