Friday, October 2, 2009

LA County Fair

I took the girls to the LA County Fair yesterday. We had a beautiful time. And I was proud of myself for taking them there without Craig! (I'm usually intimidated by such a big place!) But we had a really sweet time. I made sure that we would enter at and only stay in the area where the farm animals are. Luckily it was the only place where school groups could enter! (We got free tickets and parking because we are a school group!) Last year, we had to walk for miles in the "Pleasure Island" Carnival part of the fair and I really disliked it. This time, it was like visiting a farm.
























The first adorable thing we saw were baby goats!! This picture could never capture how cute they really were. Then we saw lots of pigs, many of them nursing on their mamas, which was super-cute.
We then went into a petting zoo area where we got to pet lots of goats, sheep, and even a cow. We were completely surrounded by animals. We got some food to feed them and they went nuts! It was really fun, but occasionally scary for Ceci so I held her a lot!



















We got to see a sheep shearing demonstration which was awesome! I've told the girls where wool comes from, and they knew, but they never actually got to see it and now they have! The sheep whined a little, but was not in any pain. I wish I would have gotten a before and after picture! The man doing the shearing was kind enough to give us all a bit of wool and we plan to wash and card it.











Ceci got to pet a nice kitty-- we also got to see her kittens!















We then got to watch a goat milking demonstration where each of the girls got to milk a goat! (I wish I could have done it!) We've been meaning to do it with Brieanne's goats, but that means getting to her house by 6am and we haven't been able to do it yet. It was really neat to see the goats milked.
I loved these adorable snuggling goats. We also got to see a newly born baby goat that was only 2 hours old!!! But they had her in a spot where I couldn't get a good picture.


All the girls got to rock on these cute rocking horses.



When we went to see the bee exhibit, I got us some honeycomb, and some honey sticks. When Olivia tried to bite into her honey stick, she made her second loose tooth fall out! So now she is missing her two bottom middle teeth!









We got to pet this adorable baby cow.


I loved how this sheep looked over at us while we practiced carding wool.











We went to an area where there were women spinning, weaving, and knitting. They also had some beautiful felted animals and other cute things. (I had to really hold back and not buy a cute scarf that kept calling me!) The kids all did some carding.










Olivia liked doing the weaving and didn't want to stop!





We got to go into this replica of an old school house!
















We then went to where you could make a rag doll! Each of the girls made one with the help of some nice people.














The last things we did were to watch this man make home made brooms and then sculpt some hand made soap. We had such a wonderful, full day!! The fair really has soooooo much to offer!

2 comments:

TCallihan said...

de-lurking here :) I am so jealous of how hands-on your fair is. Ours has slowly gone down hill and there is almost nothing left except the yucky carnival. Looks like you and the girls had a fabulous time.

Tammy said...

Oh gosh, this looks like it was a lot of FUN!