The TX Doolittle's: Texas State Fair

This is Take 1 because we are hoping to make this an annual event. Plus, we are definitely going to need a re-do from this year!

So I have lived in Texas my entire life and have never been to the state fair! We had been talking about going for the past couple of years and finally made real plans to get there. We picked a three day weekend and took the kids out early on Friday, then made our way up to Ft. Worth. We thought it would be fun to go with Jason, Becca, and their boys. Unbeknownst to us we picked the absolute busiest possible day of the state fair to go. The day of the UT/OU football game. So here's how the day went:

Once we arrived we spent almost two hours looking for a place to park. We were flabbergasted! Tim was ready to give up but the kids were so excited and we had really built this weekend up for them. I told TIm, you can drop us off, go back and hang out and Jason's, and then come back and get us but the kids and I are NOT leaving Dallas without going in there! So we finally parked. Several blocks away and in a sketchy area but on the plus side it was free! We walked away from our van on a hope and a prayer that it would still be there when we got back. So we spent a small fortune and made it into the fair but still had to buy tickets to do stuff. It was hard. We were prepared for it to be expensive, and we were ok with it. However, when we spent nearly $100 to get in, then another $100 on tickets, only to be told that tickets weren't good for midway games (which we never do but had promised the kids that we would this ONE time because we had been told it was super easy to win stuff), so we shelled out another $60 for games and the place was literally so packed you couldn't move anywhere, it was more than slightly irritating. Still...we had really built this up and I wanted so badly to salvage this day! It was just....SO....BUSY!!! I'm talking, wall to wall people, and us trying to keep 2 family's together plus not lose track of our kids and we had to steer a stroller through the wall of people. It was impossible to enjoy anything! I had been looking forward to trying lots of food but there were so many people we couldn't find anything. The kids had been looking forward to games but there were so many people we couldn't figure anything out. (BTW the kids spent their $20 each on the midway in about 3 seconds and got junk stuffed bears. I don't know WHY we had agreed to them playing, it is such a waste! It wasn't even fun and we promised that we would NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!) We tried to ride rides but apparently $100 gets you one ride per kid and one food item each for five people. Again, we KNEW it would be riduculously expensive, and we were prepared for that. But when we had spent so much money and couldn't even move around to enjoy it, well that was a different story all together. BUT....we want to try it again. We were told by so many people that day that that game day is the only day like that at the fair. That we could go any other day and it would be easy breezy and fun. There were tons of things there that we wanted to check out and we can see that it COULD be fun. Therefore, we will try again next year!

(Disclaimer: none of these photos show how many people were there in the least. That's because it was not possible to take pics in those areas. The only time I could snap a pic was when we were in a dead zone.)

Hanging out with cousins in the toddler area after the terror of being in the midway after the football game got out and we were flooded by 100,000 burgandy and burnt orange clad beer drinking fans.

In the canned art exhibit

With the acrobats after their show

Petting Zoo

S with his prize from the midway games

We had to get a picture with Big Tex (who was kinda creepy) of course!

Isaac held up extremely well being outside all day in the hot sun with no nap

Lillie and Russell watching the acrobats

Pig Races!

Yes, this was a real thing.

At the very end of the day the kids started discovering all of the cool free stuff that no one else cared about so it wasn't busy. And they had a blast of course! See, mom knows what she's talking about.

Here they are at the Toyota Parkour Court:

So, as you can see from the pictures, despite my earlier explanation of a totally crazy and harried day (which it was), as time went on we were able to salvage things and still have a good time. Now we know what TO do, and what NOT to do next year: DO NOT: go on OU/UT weekend, or go on a Saturday just to be safe, play midway games, go with other people besides our family (it's too hard to keep track of everyone and find things that interest such a different age group). DO: skip school and go on a random weekday, be ok with spending $$$ on fun food, limit the kids to one carnival ride each, make time to check out all of the cool free event.
We'll report back next year!