Fair Day!

I wish I had every Wednesday off.  What a nice way to break up the week!  I love me some short work weeks! 

We went to Neon's spinal specialist appointment first thing yesterday morning.  For anyone that doesn't know, his spine is slightly curved.  They say it's not curved enough to be called scoliosis (which Nana Darling has) but they are watching it each year as he grows to be sure that it doesn't get worse.  Last year, they said if it got any worse, we was going to have to start wearing a brace.  :(  I was really worried about this appointment and was pretty nervous when we got into the building. 

The nurse sat Supa, Dazzle and I in the room and took Neon to get his x-ray done.  He's been going to the specialist for years and knows the drill.

I love the way they decorate the rooms at a kids specialist office.  It couldnt' have been more cheery and inviting. 

After a few minutes, the doctor came in to show us the xray and explain what we were seeing.

Neon's insides!  (I actually hung this photo up at my desk)

Do you see how his spine curves to the right a little in the midsection?  That's where the problem lies.  The doctor showed us the x-ray from last year compared to the one from this year and it actually got slightly better!!  WAHOO!!  No brace needed!  Neon asked the doctor what the dark spots were by his pelvis....Gas!  Heehee!  Only Neon! 

We will be returning for another check up in one year.  The doctor said that when he goes through his puberty/growth spurt during his teenage years, we will need to bring him back every 6 months since that is the time that he will be growing very quickly.  Right now, I have high hopes that he will be fine. 

After leaving the doctor's office with a huge smile of relief on my face, we headed on over to the SC State Fair! 

(I'm keeping a running tab on how much money we spent this year to compare to last year.....)

**$28 to get into the fair (tickets bought in advance at Bilo - If we would have gotten them at the gate, it would have been $40.  (SHIIIIIT!  Just to get in?!)  The kids decided that after going to Carowinds, the fair rides seemed really lame so they didn't even want to ride rides.  Perfect!  We scored a savings of $40 just from not riding any rides!** 

It was a little chilly and cloudy out when we first got to the fair so we had to wear our jackets.  We decided to go walk around inside the exhibit buildings first to keep warm....My favorite part!


This spider is made of all blown glass.

WOW!  The whole first part of the building was decorated in everything made from out of blown glass.  It was a super cool exhibit!

Yep, this guy too.  He was HUGE!

Every year someone at the fair creates a sand sculpture.  This one didn't look as big to me as the ones from years past but it was still pretty cool.


That's Dazzle and Neon there admiring the sand art. 

The prize winning flowers and plants were in the same building and there were so many, we picked out our two favorite flowers to share. 

Pretty!!!



I think my shitty little camera did these flowers justice.

We mosied on over to the craft building.  Cat Mama and Bean made some ceramic crafts (Jade's Mom has been doing ceramics as long as I've known her) so we were on a mission to find their entries.  

We were successful!  This one was made by Cat Mama.  Nice!!

Cat has been loving horses long time and we thought she did a really great job on her horse box!  :)


There goes my shitty camera acting up again.  It was not liking the lighting.

This was the ornament that Bean made.  He did pretty good!  Keep in mind that he's only 4 and already entering things into the fair!  Heehee!!  Go, Bean!

Cat Mama also entered this little penguin!  Cute!!

Congrats Bean and Cat!!  You guys did an awesome job on your fair projects!  Wahoo!!

The whole building smelled like cookies...So you know the 4 Darlings had to have some!


Otis Spunkmeyer straight out of the oven.  YAY!!  $2 for 4 cookies.  Not bad.

This was the first thing we ate, of many.....Once we broke the food seal, we wanted more!!  Supa claimed that he was "starving" so it seemed to be time to go find some goodies....

First we got Neon his favorite:

Apparently, we got pizza from the WRONG stand.  This slice was $4 and it tasted FROZEN.  I was PISSED!

Neon will eat any kind of pizza so he didn't mind but next year, we need to find the REAL pizza booth.  Shit. 

We bought an Icee collectors cup last year while we were at the fair and the guy in the booth told us to bring it back next year to get refilled.  We did of course:


Last year, this cup cost us $9.  This year we only had to pay for refills.  $3 each...We had 4 Icees total - $12.

That was the only drinks we bought all day long...Not too bad.

The girls got their favorite to share:

Dazzle and I LOVE gyros.  Lamb, onions, cucumber sauce and loads of feta.  HEAVEN!

We got a "large" and this delicious bastard cost $11.  FML.  It was worth every penny. 

Supa ran off on his own to see what he might want....He came back with:


There is a sausage under all that heart attack.  LOL  $4 for one sloppy all-the-way sausage dog.



We all had a few fries.  This was the large and it was $5.  The bucket size was $8 (holy moly!)

After we were full from our "snack" we decided it would be smart to go pet all the animals smell cow and bird shit on a full stomach. 

First stop, the cows:


Dazzle still wants to be a vet and isn't scared of any animals so she was in cow beef heaven.

Neon was a little more hesitant but he did pet this little lady:

Those two were really sweet together.  LOL

He made the mistake of letting one rub her nose on him and he had green cow boogers all over his hoodie that I had to clean off with a hand wipe.  Oh, the joys of being the Mom.

Neon also managed to step in a pile of cow shit.  The only Darling that wasn't looking out for it since we were in a cow stable.  WTF.  The poor kid has the worst luck.  LMAO. 

We moved on to the bunny palace...

That's Dazzle there hogging the bunny and talking the bunny breeder's ear off.  I think we asked 2 million questions while we stood there.

It took an absolute act of congress to get Dazzle away from the bunny table.  I told her she had an entire room of bunnies to pay attention to!

This is a bunny?  Looks like a puff ball to me!!  LOL




There were bunnies of every shape and size!



Wait!  That's not a bunny!  That's a Ginny pig!!  CUTE FACE!!



WTF??  Yes, there were ducks in the bunny room.



I liked how this one was sitting all proper like. 



Awww!  I got a good ear shot! 



Can you see me?  LOLOL!!!

When we were finished my daughter AND my husband both were saying, "I want a pet bunny now!!!"  I could have killed the bunny breeder that was talking the pet bunnies up.  NO THANK YOU!

After we finished the bunny adventures, we headed on over to the petting zoo. 


Goats, alpacas and sheep oh my!

Again, Dazzle was in animal heaven and Neon was kind of shy about it.  He wasn't into feeding them either but Dazzle wanted me to spend a small fortune on the animal food machines.  I think I ended up spending about $2 on food pellets.

They had the zebra in the middle, all alone and no one was allowed to touch him.....I wonder why?? 
Dazzle was not happy with these arrangements.  LOL

As we were leaving the petting zoo area, I saw what I thought was a beautiful sight....

Supa said we should ride the lift and I said NO thank you.  The last time we rode it (when we were dating) I hated it.  It was swinging around and didn't feel secure at all! 

The sky looked so nice.  It warmed up by this time, most of the clouds were gone and we all had our jackets tied around our waists. 

It was time to go find our next snack!  Grampa Darling used to take me to the Friendship Festival in our home town each year when I was younger and I remember he always wanted to share a funnel cake with me.  I decided we needed to share one in his honor....


Just powdered sugar.  Anything else and they get all soggy.  It was delicious!!  $5

We spent some time walking around the entire fair just looking at all the rides and games and pointing out the new stuff.  The kids wanted to play fair games and I was always taught (by Grampa Darling) that all the games are rigged so you can't win.  This results in a complete waste of money.  Well, my kids didn't believe me and just had to try one so I let them (only to prove my point).  Neon picked one that he thought would be the easiest to win.  You know, the one where you have to knock the milk jugs over with a ball.  Haha.  This cost me $6 for 4 tries.  Neon got 2 shots and Dazzle got 2.  The guy even gave them each an extra throw for free.  Guess what they won?  NOTHING.  Lol, it only cost me $6 to make my point.  They both learned their lesson, felt properly ripped off and vowed to never play another fair game again. 

While we walked around the fair grounds, Supa found a couple more things to eat.



Yum!  Normal sized corn dogs...All the proceeds go to help the Shriner kids foundation...Perfect!  $2.

I had one bite and it was perfectly fried. 


One hot dog all the way from the same Shriner's booth - $2.50.  Tasted delicious. 

We decided we were all full and I was starting to get sunburned (in October, yep, go figure) so we got our last snack and headed for the exit.  

4 Chocolate ice cream cones dipped in chocolate:  $9  What a steal! 

Those cones tasted wonderful and were a perfect touch to the end of our fair adventure.  Of course, by the time we got back to the van, Neon had chocolate ice cream dripping down his arm.   :)  One more mess for Mom to clean up.  He better be glad I love him and don't mind, heehee.

We had an absolutely wonderful day of fun together.  I didn't want it to end.  :)

Total funds spent this year:

Right around $93.  Not bad compared to last years : $142.  I left with change in my pocket and that made me really happy.  I made sure before we exited the fair grounds that everyone was full and got to eat, do and see everything they wanted to.  Everyone seemed satisfied so we headed home. 

I'm leaving work early for the day so I'll get one more post in tomorrow before the weekend begins....

Happy fall, folks!

Apple