Fun at the Fair!

When you have kids, every weekend is a busy weekend.  Seriously, just sitting at home is work because kids don't just "sit" anywhere...you're always feeding/entertaining/cleaning up after/attending to their bathroom needs/etc.

But this past weekend was an *extra* busy weekend.

My mom and I took the kids on a road trip - that included an overnight stay - and then drove back to Dallas Sunday morning in time to meet Charles at the State Fair of Texas for Big Tex's 60th Birthday Celebration.

We were there to honor Big Tex (with a milk toast, par-tay!) and then headed over to the Dairy MAX Dairy Discovery Zone with a few other bloggers for some dairy education and family fun for the kids.

Jack milks an life-size replica of a cow and fills up his backpack with some free goodies at the Dairy Discovery Zone.

OK, you all know I was a 4-H/FFA chick, right?  And that I lived in the country for eight years?  And had donkeys and other assorted farm animals?  So basically, I know a thing or two about dairy and life on the farm.

But you know what?  My kids TOTALLY DON'T.  They are, for the most part, city slickers.  In fact, just recently Jack asked me how milk gets to the stores and I had to explain that it comes from cows, and then had to talk about udders, which I ended up comparing to my own lactating boobs, which he totally got because he knows the baby always seems to be nursing, and so on and so forth.  But that made me realize that maybe, just maybe, I'm not doing the best job I could do teaching my kids about where their food comes from.

So, I let Dairy Discover Zone do my dirty work!

Jack got to milk a life-size cow replica, complete with udders (he cried when I told him he had to let someone else have a turn).  He toured the dairy trailer, played with the interactive touch-screen TV, got to fill up a backpack with dairy-themed goodies, and even got to play on a giant plastic hunk of cheese.

While we were there, he also got a Fuel Up to Play 60 sticker (he loves stickers, so this was a huge win).  Fuel Up to Play 60 is the organization you've probably seen Michelle Obama promoting (can I just stop for a moment here to say I adore her?).  Dairy Max is involved with Fuel Up to Play 60 (because you need to eat healthy so you'll have fuel to be active, right?).

So, that was all great fun and I felt like maybe I had kind of at least a little bit taught Jack more about where his food comes from.

After learning about healthy eating and staying active, we took to the fast food stands for some serious corny dogs and sugary drinks (it's the State Fair of Texas, it only happens once a year, right??).

With corny dogs in hand (in Texas, they're "corny" dogs, in the rest of the world, they're "corn" dogs), we took the kids to the Dog Show (which we somehow manage to see every year) and then finished up by letting Jack throw a few fastballs in the Chevy Fast Pitch exhibit (I think that's what it was called?).

Claire claps for the frisbee-chasing dogs, plays in a giant wedge of cheese (with a hairdo like Harry from Dumb & Dumber), and Jack gets his fast pitch on (seriously, he means business, doesn't he?).

A big thanks to Dairy MAX and one last "Happy Birthday!" to Big Tex.  We had a great time and were happy to be there!

Disclosure: We received tickets to the State Fair of Texas in exchange for promoting Big Tex's birthday bash and visiting the Dairy Discovery Zone.  All opinions are entirely my own.