The Fryeburg Fair

We left Sunday River at the end of the day on Saturday and headed to Jason's parent's house.  Jason had to work Saturday so he met us at his parent's house.  He didn't get to see the kids on Saturday since he didn't arrive until 10:30pm but at least he made it early than I had anticipated. 
We got up on Sunday and resumed our long weekend.  We took the kids to the Fryeburg Fair.  Jason and I hadn't been to the fair in years so we were also looking forward to seeing all the animals as well.  We spent about four to five hours at the fair.  We saw, dairy cows, beef cows, oxen, sheep, goats, draft horses, llamas, alpacas and pigs.  We watched some harness racing and the kids played one of the dart games where they each won a stuffed animal. 

We brought the kids into the little red school house. This was the school that was owned by Jason's family and used to be on their property. His grandmother went to school in this school house and donated it to the fair. They moved it from Jason's parent's property to the fairgrounds and restored it. It was nice for the kids to see it and there is a picture of Grammie in the school house. I got a little misty eyed myself since Grammie died while we were in Prague and it just kind of brought it home to me that she wasn't here anymore. I wanted to tell everyone in the school house that she wasn't just some random lady pictured on the wall and that she was an awesome woman who was caring and funny.  Before any tears slipped from my eyes though we moved on from the school house and watched some oxen plowing the land. 

We stopped in the alpaca barn and spoke with a guy there selling alpacas.  I was curious and asked how much they cost.  I'm amazed at the difference in price.  A non breeding male is only $300 whereas a breeding male can be around $20,000!  At $300 though I was curious and started asking more questions...how much does it cost to maintain them (a bale of hay every other week), what kind of house do they need (only a three sided structure year round), do they get along with dogs (depends on the dog).  By the time I got to "does it get along with dogs" question Jason was giving me a look and then told me that we aren't getting an Alpaca.  I know we aren't getting one but the idea is fun and they are such cute animals.  I guess I will just have to enjoy the one that lives down the road from us. The kids enjoyed seeing the alpacas and they even worked with the alpaca fur to prepare it for spinning.



Throughout the day we would stop and eat fair food...fried dough, fried snickers, fried Oreos, hot dogs, fries, lemonade and maple cotton candy.  I was excited to try the snickers and Oreo since it seems to be all the rage.  I can now say I don't get it.  They were not good.  I don't want a partially melted snickers with a greasy mess around it.  I would rather just have a snickers.  If I'm going to do anything with my snickers it is put it in the freezer.  The Oreo wasn't as bad as the snickers but again I would rather just have a plain Oreo.  I did not get the fried Twinkies that were for sale.  They are awful by themselves so I didn't think frying them was going to help their flavor at all.  I did however enjoy the fried dough and the maple cotton candy.  Rather then buy regular cotton candy we went into the sugar house at the fair where they were making maple syrup.  When we went in we realized that they were also making cotton candy made from maple sugar.  We couldn't pass that up and bought some.  It was good and had a maple flavor to it unlike regular cotton candy which just tastes like pure sugar. It was good day and after all that time we were ready to head back to the house and relax