See You At The Fair!

 The Mannington Fair was this weekend - we met over at Big Lots in town and Susan drove. We stopped at her parents house down the road for the bathroom and to store our purses, then off to the fair. Susan remembered it much busier, it was once the second largest fair in the state - but I think that's endemic all over. The rides and games are very expensive now, up to five dollars a game or ride. If you have two or three kids, they each want to ride 3 rides.......and that's before you eat. And eat I did! There were rows and rows of fair food, all deep fried and liberally coated with sugar.  Jessica did not believe me that the deep fried oreos were a point a piece. I did have vegetables, however I'm sure the nutritional value was negated by the think batter they swam in prior to being lowered into the deep fryer for a spell. The ranch dressing didn't look too low calorie either but you once the pony's out there is not point in shutting the gate, is there? I did peek in the trailer of where they were cooking it - big mistake but then realized nothing viral or bacterial could survive the hot oil bath so what ever. I was not TOTALLY bad - I got the small vegetable plate instead of the large and split the oreos with Jess and Susan. We went up to the community building to see my shawls on display - I won ribbons for ALL of them, two first place for the large ones, second place for the smaller one. We met up with Susan's family and had her nieces with us for an hour, they're hilarious of course, Claire is 8 and Lily is her 13 year old put upon sister.  I did find it very funny that Susan refers to Claire as her brother's payback - she's a pretty rambunctious child and rather hilariously speaks her mind. Loudly.  It's always funnier when it's someone else's relative, isn't it? We watched the tractor races - the one from Morgantown was so slow. He had more safety equipment on than a NASCAR driver, we think that's what slowed him down. We did the craft sale, the horse pull (the Belgium horses were beautiful). I didn't get home til after 12:30 but what a fun night. Today we went walking with Charlene, Pearl spotted her friends right off and went racing, tail wagging and dancing. We did the very easy trail, Sophie has slowed down a great deal too and Pearl does well, but gets short of breath if it's too much. I have been bringing water and food with us on a regular basis, my little backpack serves me well. We're doing it again next weekend, even though it might be a strain on Pearl she enjoys it so much it's worth the effort. I have work on Monday, coming too soon. This weekend has been really really nice.