The (almost) Best Day of Summer!

Each summer I say that the Best Day of Summer is the day I get to go to the Minnesota State Fair. It really is incredible, and such a wonderful day each summer! Well, this year, I'd say that Our Wedding Day was the best day of the whole summer, but last Sunday was a close second!

I was really excited to have Brent experience the whole fair, but I also wanted to not overwhelm him. As my friend Aimee said, I'm a die-hard when it comes to the fair! I really wanted him to like it, but I also wasn't sure if it would be just up his alley or not. It even got to the point that I said to him a few days prior "if you don't love it, could you lie to me just this once and tell me that you had fun, just so I won't be disappointed?" He laughed at that request, and then agreed to follow it!

We drove to the Twin Cities last Saturday, and after church on Sunday headed over to the fairgrounds with my parents. As we were just inside the fairgrounds and Brent got to really see what it was all about, he said "it's not just a fair, it's a Food Fest!" He was right! The first stop on our Food Fest was the "Hog-On-A-Log" stand, where I had a wonderful porkchop on a stick. If you're not familiar with the Minnesota State Fair, it's famous for selling everything on a stick. (It's also the largest fair in the country, based on the attendance-per-day numbers, and has many other wonderful things to offer!) Anyway, Brent decided to buy something different, so that we could have a taste of each other's meals, so he opted for the turkey drumstick. They were both wonderful ways to start our day!

After the meat-on-a-stick lunch, we started wandering around to find some of our favorite things. This is my mom's most-loved stand, and not being a pickle fan myself, one I stay away from.
Another favorite place, and not food-related at all, is the Creative Activities building. It has all sorts of amazing quilts, wood-working projects, and other handmade goodies of the edible and non-edible type. It's my favorite building to walk through.
Cheese Curds! Yummy!!!!! These are one of my favorite things ever! It's funny, because now that I'm a Wisconsinite (yup, got my driver's license and everything!) I'm learning that people from Wisconsin are really in love with cheese. The whole cheesehead thing is pretty real. There are entire stores dedicated just to cheese (they might throw some bread or meat-sticks in for good measure, but it's all about the cheese) and you can walk through the grocery store and see that the cheese cooler is twice as big as I've seen in any of the other five states I've lived in. Anyway, back to the story.... in Wisconsin, another name for cheese curds are squeeky-cheese. They sell cheese here that is basically just cheese cut up into bite sized pieces, and since it was made earlier that morning (the fresher the better so says my husband) it actually squeeks in your teeth when you bite into it. It's not deep-fried at all! That's the only way I ever knew cheese curds to be made! It was good to be home again....

A quick picture at the top of a little hill just so you could see how many people were there. I just looked it up and found out that there were 186,324 people there that day and 2009 set a new overall attendance record! Almost 1.8 million people! It was crowded, but do-able, and the weather that day was just perfect: not too hot, and not too cold!
In one of the dairy buildings there are sculptures made out of butter! They are heads of each of the Princess Kay of the Milky Way women, and get this... at the end of the fair, each woman gets to take hers home. Now, I'd like to hear, just what would you do if you had a huge carved block of butter sitting in your deep-freeze?
I snapped a few pictures in the horticulture building, where they were showcasing dahlia's for the day.
Lots of color! It's fun to see what people can grow or make or build and then win blue-ribbons for their effort.
Another annual stop, mini donuts! I'm not even a huge donut fan, but this is a state fair must!
And one my husband was pretty thankful for!
We decided to do something I haven't done in years, and took a ride on the sky glider! We were at one end of the fair, wanted to get to the other side, and realized this would be a great way to get there!
While riding along, I saw this scene and thought it might make for a good picture. It was fun to see the sun at just the right point behind the clouds.
Looking down over some of the things we had just walked by, like the tractor area (machinery hill) and the carvings done by chainsaws.
A far off look at some of the rides. A funny story.... during high school, my youth group went up on the tall spire (you ride the round thing in the middle and it goes up to the top and circles around so you can have a 360-view of the Twin Cities) and while we were at the top, something happened to the ride and we ended up being stuck up there for quite a while! Obviously we made it back down.
A look at one of the trolley's that gives free rides around the fairgrounds. We didn't choose this option this year.
More Midway rides:

I caught a glimpse of one of my favorite stands where I had forgotten to take an earlier picture. Two years ago while enjoying the fair with my cousin, Krista, I tried a chocolate-dipped-salted-nut-roll and really, well.... fell in love. It was magnificant! I'm glad I was able to enjoy the sweet and salty treat again!
Taken just before getting off the sky-glider. Glorious!
A perfect way to end the day, with Sweet Martha's Chocolate Chip Cookies, and milk! It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day.
We were able to enjoy fun foods, see some beautiful projects, do a lot of people-watching, see some interesting animals, and enjoy a fun day together! It was great to introduce Brent to one of my favorite things about Minnesota, and get this.... at the end of the day, even though his feet hurt from all the walking, he told me he didn't even need to lie about it, he really did have fun!