Fair Time

Once again the carnival rides and cowboys have arrived. Fair time in Montana. I've gone to our county fair for off and on 27 years now. I started going to the fair at the age 13 for the rides and games. My main objective was how many times could I ride the Zipper before I puked. (5 by the way.) As I got older the fair was more for showing off my new school clothes and shaking my Rocky Mountain clad ass in front of the football players. After high school, I would travel from Missoula to party at the fair. I only saw the rides because they were on the way to the beer garden. The demolition derby seen from my bleacher seat in the drinking section topped off the weekend. The Hubster and I got married when I was 22 and we occasionally went to the demo, but the fair was not a major attraction to us. Camping on labor day weekend was much more to our liking. The year 2000 was our first weekend camping trip with our 1 yr old son and our last. Camping with a 1 yr old + rain + sleepless nights = not fun. So the next labor day weekend rolled around and we decided to do the fair. Being Steven was only 2 yrs old, the rides he could go on were pretty limited. I had just gotten a digital camera and was very excited to take pictures of Steven at his first fair. When I got home and downloaded the pictures to my pc, I erased every single one of them. I was so devastated that I had lost those pics that Hubster took us back to the fair so I could take pictures all over again. We basically threw Steven on a ride took his pic and onto the next ride and so on and headed back home.
In 2002, Dean was 5 months old and Steven a month shy of being 3. Steven had a blast on the rides and playing games on the midway. Dean was quite satisfied watching the people and lights from his stroller. Hubster and I were simply exhausted. You know all the cables they run along the ground from ride to ride and across the midway every 5 feet? Not fun when pushing a stroller and trying to dodge running children and drunk cowboys. The next year, we wised up and invited Hubsters brother and wife to come with us. Reinforcements! You gotta love Aunties who love to go on rides with their nephews. Steven was a pro with the rides at this time and showed Dean the best places to sit on the rides. Although the teddy bear ride scared Dean and Steven spent the whole time trying to get Dean to quit crying. I was learning the best routes to take that involved the least cables. 2004, we once again wrangled Uncle and Auntie into coming with us. We had a blast. Hubster, the boys and I got our picture taken and it is the best photo of all of us I think we'll ever take. We still had the stroller with us, but more for hauling stuffed animals and diaper bag. I learned to be an aggressive stroller driver and make the unruly children and drunken cowboys step out of my way. Good memories were made that year.
Which brings us to now. No stroller since the boys are old enough to romp around for hours and not want to be carried. Dean didn't cry on any of the rides. They absolutely loved the dragon coaster. They're the two toe heads in the yellow shirts in the picture. They both won prizes on the midway throwing darts, rolling balls and fishing with magnets. We got another picture taken and it was the most awful picture we've ever taken. Oh well. Uncle and Auntie didn't come with us this time, so it was just our little family. I know our times of going to the fair as a family will only last so long and then the boys will want to go with their friends. I don't know what the future of the fair holds for Hubster and I. Who knows? It may find us attending the rodeo sitting in the bleachers in the non drinking section. Its evolution.