So, we took a break from the unpacking yesterday and headed for the county fair. As you can imagine, Ava was beyond excited. The whole way there she talked about what she was going to ride and see and do and ride and ride...you get the idea. First stop on our adventure: the pony rides, followed by our first tour of some livestock barns, then a greasy fair-food lunch, and off to buy the ride tickets. Immediately, Ava spotted the dragon rollercoaster. I thought it looked a little fast and scary for her, but she met the height requirement and begged, pleaded, and insisted that she would not be scared. Against my better judgement, she boarded Puff the Magic Dragon Coaster. And she wasn't scared....for the first two rounds. But that carnie lady just didn't know when to stop. That thing must've gone 'round 10 times with Ava enjoying it less each time. I was just on my way over to ask her to please stop it, when Puff finally began to slow to a halt. Whew. I lifted a pale and trembling Ava off of the platform. It really threw me off to see Ava so shaken. She's practically fearless. I mean, I see her get a little scared or pretend to be scared with her flair for the dramatic, but this time she was honest-to-goodness scared. I felt bad that I had let her ride. Emily is going to be glad that Ava was our test dummy child. Live n' learn, right? Suprisingly, Ava bounced back quickly (after about 90 seconds of TLC and a big drink of Mt. Dew put her right as rain) and was off to use the rest of her tickets on a tamer variety of spinning, whirling, dipping, and potentially vomit inducing rides. She had a blast! Finished with her tickets, she persuaded us to let her bungee trampoline. Are you questioning our ability to make good parenting decisions now? Of course our little thrill seeker loved that too. At this point Mike needed to head back to work, but the fun continued for Ava, Emily, and me. We saw a bear show, Ava won a midway game and chose a neon stuffed snake as her prize, Ava had her arm painted(not a girly heart or butterfly on her face as suggested by the artist...but a sailboat on her arm. Classic Ava.), saw lots and lots more animals, learned how to milk a cow on a weird dummy bovine with synthetic teats (Heh hehehe heh, fake teats. Shut-up, Beavis). We wrapped up the day by splitting a delicious funnel cake and ice cold lemon shake up. Perfect. The Cuyahoga County Fair was super nice. To my Indiana readers, it was on par with the Elkhart Co. Fair, maybe even a little nicer. I was actually suprised by the amount of livestock in a fairly urban county. Next year we may have to venture back to see some of the tribute bands and watch the fireworks. Here are the pictures and a little video clip of Ava on the bungee trampoline.
