Ever since we moved, Aaron and I have talked about getting the kids involved in 4H someday. This year, we finally made it to the Leavenworth County 4H Fair at the fairgrounds in Tonganoxie, Kansas, and it was a blast to see in action.
We coordinated the day with when my brother, his family, my mom, my dad and our extended family of cousins would all be there as well. The result was a lot of fun with plenty of people to help us enjoy some downtime.
Our first stop was the turtle races tent. Rhett and Tanner had entered their turtle to race through a short maze. While it didn’t win this year (it has in the past!), Isai and the boys had plenty of fun running around on the trailer-turned-stage with a ton of other kids. While our son is still quite a bit younger than the other kids we run into, I’m still always amazed by how kindly they all treat him when we’re at functions like this. When we visit the park in the city, older kids don’t always react quite as welcoming. It’s just so stinking refreshing.
From there, we moved on to the livestock barns. We wandered through the 4H goats, calves, cattle, chickens and rabbits. The kids loved seeing them all and feeding handfuls of grain to the goats through the fence. I’m always amused that this is something we could easily do on our own farm and yet it brings so much joy doing it someplace else.
Once you’ve soaked up all the fun you can handle from the live animals, the fairgrounds boasts a giant carnival full of rides and games. Without really knowing what to expect, we bought some tickets for Isai. We quickly learned that you can’t ride the solo kids’ rides without shoes. That’s probably a duh moment for some – but we really did not think that one through while letting our kid leave home shoeless.
We did, though, manage to get him onto a couple of kiddie rides with – wait for it – daddy. That’s right. Farmer Crossley got pulled into the back seat of a helicopter and flying elephant just to keep this kiddo right in the middle of the action. Best dad ever.
Fully worn out from our early morning trip to momma’s triathlon combined with an exhaustive time at the fair and way too much funnel cake – it was time for our exit. We loaded up the car with some resistance, but everyone relaxed into the ride home and crashed, hard, within minutes of hitting the road.