Iowa State Fair

We headed over to Des Moines for the fair to taste their fried foods and some of their 50 foods "on a stick." Yes, I said 50.

Here is one of the more random "on a sticks" - an egg (they were actually really gross)

Yes, that is what is says...we had a snickers.

No it's not a corndog (though we did have a hand dipped dog too), its the Snickers on a stick. Both boys also indulged on this and quite enjoyed it. What would you choose? We chose Twinkie - it was okay. A lot of "breading" with warm cream in the middle. We also had some fried veggies - green beans, zuccinni, mushroom, cauliflower, onion and some cheese curds. Healthy eats huh?

We really enjoyed the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit. Kurt really enjoyed himself. They planted a "seed" then harvested what they planted. Then they picked an apple,
Gathered an egg from the hens,
Got some corn and soy beans from the silos, then turned them into fuel for their tractors,
Milked a cow,
Then they turned in their harvest for $1 which they took to the grocery store and bought a snack. It was really fun!

Then the boys went fishing. They weren't able to catch one though. I think the fish in the pool had caught onto the game and weren't up for getting hooked just for a little bit.

Brandon loved the horticulture barn.

This pumpkin won 1st prize for it's ginormous size

These were the winning watermelons (for size)

There were lots of animals to see. Here was a calf trying to taste us...

...Luke didn't really like that

And if this post wasn't already long enough...here are some things we thought were funny

They carve huge statues out of butter. There was also a huge cow.

Aside from the billions of pigs we saw (including some that weighed over 1000 pounds), we thought this scene was amusing. Note the "pig pen" on the right...there were 4 or 5 pens full of people in the pig barn.

Funny shirt

Funny that his (daughter) totally caught Brandon taking a picture of the shirt...

Selling daughters? Even if she has a beer belly, that's a little mean don't you think? But it also clarified why there were people in the pig pens - they're for sale. This poor girl was over in pen #844 :)