One of our MANY family traditions is the annual trek to our State Fair.  We know a lot people who avoid the State Fair,  but our family is weird and we love it!  It’s a fusion of awesome “bad-for-you” food and compelling people-watching.

This is a pictorial of how we ate our way through the State Fair – our motto is “Eat ’til you Puke!”  We usually have a list of must-eats and then add anything else we can fit in.  However, this year, we did not get in two of our mainstays – corn on the cob and lemon shake-ups.  I think this happened because we added too many new things – what were we thinking?

Okay, here we go:

Cheesy Beef on a Stick (2 shared), Sno-Cone (1 for each kid), Kettle Corn ( 1 shared), Gyro (Jen), Jumbo Smoked Turkey Leg (Jack), Stuffed Baked Potato (Rachel), Corn Dog (1 each for Mike & Maddie), Deep Fried Cookie Dough (1 ordered shared), Elephant Ear (1 shared), Chocolate Milkshake (1 for each), Deep Fried Veggies (1 order shared), Cotton Candy (1 bag shared).  All of this was over a span of time from 2:30 pm until 8:00pm.

The Elephant Ear and Stuffed Potato are not actual pictures of our State Fair food – my son almost single-handedly scarfed down the elephant ear and it was gone before I could take the picture (the rest of us had to do defensive eating on the Ear)!  And, the stuffed potato?  I was too busy eating my Gyro and forgot to take the picture!

Now, people-watching at the Fair is awesome and I wish I could have taken pictures of some of the patrons of the Fair.  It just would have been too intrusive and awkward, so you will just have to picture the People of Walmart – VERY similar imagery.  I have to say that my stint at the State Fair has inspired me to get off of my fat ass and do some exercise.  My next self-improvement project is jogging – that is a subject of another post.

We love all of the sights at the Fair – the animal barns, Our Land Pavilion, Horticulture Building, Home and Family Arts Building, etc.

In the Our Land Pavilion, they have the Cockroach Roach Races (see the picture of the “fans” – they are cockroaches, too), Cheese Sculpture, and the Sand/Clay Sculpture.  Our Fair is celebrating the “Year of the Pig”, so everything is themed around the Pig.

In the Horticulture Building, they show all of the award-winning vegetables like the State’s largest pumpkin (see pic below), you can buy honey ice cream, you can sign up to be a member of the Gourd Society (woohoo!), and this year it’s also the site of CANstruction.   CANstruction is a fundraiser for local food banks.  Businesses team up and create sculptures out of canned food cans which are  then donated to a local food bank.  It’s pretty cool.  My husband’s firm participated this year and below is their project (remember the theme is Year of the Pig).

In the Home & Family Arts building, they have pies, cakes, cookies, cake decorating, sewing, quilting, painting, etc.  See the painting below?  This is the painting of a classmate of mine from my oil painting classes – this is her second painting EVER and she won 2nd place.  Please see the painting next to it – its MY second painting ever.  Maybe I need to take up another hobby!

 As we do every year, we enjoyed our day at the State Fair 2010!  A lot of giggling, eating, oohing, aahing, and sore feet!

Here are some other various pictures from our trip to the State Fair.  Enjoy!