The Texas State Fair Extravaganza!!! 2009 version

 

Terah and I bought season tickets to the Texas State Fair this year, so we went A LOT of times!! It was great fun and a quick DART trip to the fair grounds. The State Fair of Texas is the biggest state fair in the country.

Here we are at the platform at Cityplace waiting for our train. William is always excited to ride the "DART train".


Cityplace is the only station below ground. It's pretty nice all year round in Dallas (comparatively) so most stations are outdoors, and above ground. He we just came out of Cityplace, on our way to Pearl Station, one stop away, where we switch trains.


They were pretty thorough about checking for contraband, except for on the last day Terah and I went, when the guy said "oh, go on through, I know you two don't have anything". Hurray!!


Even with season pass, you have to stop at the ticket window, where they give you a regular ticket for admission. I say regular, when the one below CLEARLY says SPECIAL TICKET on it.


We took William around to have fun the first day. He really likes the petting zoo.


William REALLY liked this tiny zebra!! It was SO cute and furry!


BUT it bit William's hand, so he was pretty suspicious of it after that. Here he's checking to make sure that zebra isn't sneaking up for another nip!!


I made the boys sit in these barrels for pictures.


I tried to put them both in the SAME barrel thinking it would be cute, but Aldous didn't think it was that cute.


I love these oreo cookie cows. There's a whole herd we see occasionally on the way to Clarita, OK, for the Amish school auction.


Mrs. Camel, nursing her baby in public.


After the petting zoo, we needed a snack! MY first fried food purchase of the fair season: FRIED OKRA!!! I love this stuff!!!


William was darn excited about it, too!


This is Aldous' favorite, Big Tex. He actually learned to say Big Tex on this first visit, and pointed and shouted "Big Tex" every time he saw him!


And the Texas Star. I got a few pics of this, this year. Right now the Texas Star is the biggest Ferris Wheel in the United States, but there is another, about 50ft taller, supposed to open this year in New Jersey.


This is William's first solo carnival ride: he LOVED it!!


He did NOT like this one, and it had to be stopped early due to his crying. "Too fairy", he said.


Audrey, wondering where the heck her mother is.....


Oh wait!! There she is!! On a ride with William!! What fun!! Terah looks like this is the most fun she's EVER had; William, not so much.


Another solo ride, on a ship!!


We break for lunch, which Aldous is really thankful for. He's a hungry kid!


William, at lunch, upon hearing we would be getting back on the "DART train" to go home. YAY!!!


We took one trip at night, a first for both Doug AND I. Neither of us had gone at night but we had heard it was great. Additionally, it had rained all day, and we were hoping it was nice and slow at the fair.

We didn't take the stroller, at all, we each carried a kid in an ergo, which was SUPER convenient.


Doug and William in their matching hoodies.


One of the long escalators to the train platform.


We got there in time to see the parade.


The big deal with this parade is that all the floats are lighted. It was very pretty.


Big Tex at night!! Below the extended arm, you can see the Texas Star, lit up!


After the parade we got a couple hot dogs at Dollar Dog, but no pics?? ha ha!
Anyway, the next thing for us was the light show!! WOO!! It was really neat, and Aldous loved dancing to the music.








After the fab light show, we headed to the Texas Star for a ride.


Up close, from below.


My batteries went dead right about then, so that's the end of that night. I did twitter a view from the very top, though, with my phone.

On our anniversary, we all went to the fair!! Last year, we went on Doug's birthday, which is the day before our anniversary.


After we got there, Doug and I split up, with him taking William to see some fun things. They went to some train museum, while Terah, Audrey, Aldous and I went another direction.






We headed over to see OPRAH WINFREY!!!!!!!!! Can you believe she came to our fair?? Holy Cow!!!! I've been DVRing every Oprah Show since this day to see if I can see the State Fair episode.


Joining Oprah was Martina McBride.


And here's my Oprah Pepper.


It's OPRAH!! It's OPRAH!!! VERY exciting!!!!


And the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders doing a dance.


This whole thing totally bored Audrey


After the Oprah sighting, Terah and I headed with our packs to the Food and Fiber Pavillion, where they have TONS of free samples of food. People were in LONG, LONG lines to get samples of crap like salsa, cheese, bread...it's was NUTSO!!! I didn't get in any lines, but Terah got in one, for a quesadilla.


Across from where Terah waited in line, someone was giving away free trees. Boy, that was a madhouse!



We moved over the competitions, in another building. Look at this preserved food!! So beautiful!


check out the picture of the pig butts in the middle of the top row!!! ha ha!!!


After we looked at all the "boring " stuff, we headed out to find Doug and William. The museum of Nature and Science is at Fair Park, and you can see the Texas Star across the pond from the museum. Those swans are paddle boats.


This is a neat walkway though the pond behind the Museum of Nature and Science...really cool!!


Happy baby Aldous!!!


This is the line at the fried peaches and cream stand, one of the top five winners of the fried food contest.


William at the parking garage, almost home!!