We decided to go up to Maine for the long holiday weekend. It was nice to see Jason's parents and the kids always have fun at their house. We also took the chance to go to the Fryeburg Fair again this year with the kids. They enjoyed it so much last year and we enjoy the fair as well so it is a fun activity to do together. We had to indulge in fair food...dough boys (fried dough), hot dogs, sausage, fries and maple sugar cotton candy. It is always yummy at a fair. The kids love cotton candy and it is definitely better when it is made from maple sugar in the sugar shack! This year the kids really wanted to go on some of the rides so we bought our tickets and headed to the ferris wheel. This always seem to be the first request for the girls. Now that they are older it isn't quite as stressful for me to have them up there (with me of course). We ended up having perfect timing for the ferris wheel since when we were on it we could see the fair parade around the track. It was a perfect view with no one blocking the kids. After the ferris wheel we headed to the area with most of the rides for the younger kids and the girls chose to go down a slide. The slide was FAST! Ali ended up getting some air off of one of the bumps but really seemed to enjoy it. With $25 spent on ride tickets they had one ride left to choose and they chose to go down the slide again because it was so fun. Here is the video of their first trip down the slide.
After using up all our ride tickets it was time to make the rounds of the fair ground. We headed to the school house where Jason's grandmother went to school. She donated the school to the fair grounds and they moved it there from Jason's parent's land. It is always fun to be in that school house knowing that many of Jason's ancestors went to school there. Grammie's picture is up on the wall and I like that the kids have this public place where they can always be grounded in their family history.
A little blurry but the here are the girls with
Clementine
After the school houses we headed to the tractors and animals. It is an agricultural fair so there are a lot of animals...pigs, cows, oxen, sheep, goats, horses etc. This year we didn't go into all the barns but we did see a lot of them. The main focus this year was to find Clementine, a horse they had seen last year. Clementine is a black Clydesdale with white fur on her feet. She is a beautiful horse and the kids just loved her last year. I was surprised that even a year later how vivid their memory was of the horse. We went through a few barns looking for her. On the third barn Ali stopped short and said "that's Clementine". I didn't have as vivid a memory so I asked the owner if it was Clementine. Sure enough Ali was correct! I'm not sure what about Clementine stood out to her since we had walked past other black Clydesdale's but she got it right. They were also happy to see Clementine's baby in the stall next to her since she was pregnant at the fair last year.
The fair was a hit but after four hours of walking around we were all tired and ready to head home. We checked out the pigs on the way out and played one more game in hopes of winning a bigger stuffed animal and then headed for the car. Another successful year at the Fryeburg Fair. I'm sure we will be there next year!
On Sunday we decided to go apple picking again since we had already eaten all the apples we had picked on our last outing. We went to Pietree Orchards which is nearby and which Jason's parents have been to before. The farm store was great with fresh baked cookies and apple cider donuts, fresh coffee and hot apple cider. We were excited before we even got out to the orchard! It was pretty late in the season for apple picking in Maine but we were apple to pick red and golden delicious as well as macs and cortlands. We took the hayride out to the orchard for fun since it really wasn't that far. The kids had fun using the picking rakes for the first time to get the apples up at the higher parts of the tree. I let them do most of the picking and just held the bag open for them while I enjoyed my hot apple cider. After picking apples we hopped back on the hayride to go back to the farm stand. They had a hay maze that the kids wanted to do so we watched as they headed in to the maze at two different spots. We weren't sure which was the start and the finish so we just let them go. It was funny to watch them figure it out. Sofia figured it out first and crawled under some hay to complete the maze. Ali was not down with getting her dress (very appropriate attire for apple picking) dirty so she kept looking for another way out. When it was time to go Sofia ran through the maze and under the hole in the hay while Ali decided she was making her own path and climbed over the bales of hay! I can't say I blame her though since I would not have gotten all muddy either.
The rest of the day was just time to play at Jason's parent's house. Fortunately the rain that had been called for all weekend held off and the kids could play outside. Since the leaves had already started to fall the kids had a blast raking them up into a pile and playing in them. They jumped in them, buried themselves in them, snuggled and napped in them and made themselves a nest. It is amazing the endless imaginations they seem to have. It also makes me happy that they get along so well.
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