The hottest day of the year.

Its almost fall now. Tomorrow marks the fall seasonal shift on the calendar at least, and today we had the first taste of autumn. Waves of crisp cool air to send a brief refreshing cathartic start to the season. I'm surprised that its so welcoming to me right now, because up until yesterday I was feeling like I was robbed of a decent summer.

Things are getting closer and closer to finished at the house though and things are easing up at home, which makes me relax a little bit and even, gasp, get time to write on the blog.

Not so long ago though, we were straddling four days of HOT. So grossly, disgustingly humid and hot. They happened to fall right on the week of the state fair, and happened to be on exactly the day we planned to go. Ugh.

If you know me though, you know I love the state fair. I love the cheese curds, the deep-fried wonderful goodness. The weird treats, the hoards of people, the weird shows in the grandstands. The markets and infomercial buys. I love it all. I look forward to it every year. No matter the weather.

But, we had taken the day off and new it would be in low attendance, which is key for the kids, so we decided to grin and bear it. We arrived as early as possible (about 8:30 am) or so and got to it. We had walked all of 10 feet before we were sweating bullets. It was SCORCHING and sticky. HOT and irritating. GROSS.

 Away we went. Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, the boys and Uncle Chris. First stop the Little Hands Farm. We always take the boys here first because the lines are about 500 people long in the middle of the day. It seemed like a good idea. But just the walk from the entry to the Little Hands Farm was painfully hot. Even though it was 9 in the morning, we gave the boys the ice cold icecream they were handing out. Mostly because it was cold.

 Every year we take a picture of the boys near this Oliver tractor. I imagine we'll have one for a few more years to come. It reminds me of my dad and they think of it as "papa's tractor."

 Even though it was so hot the boys enjoyed moving around the farm. They think "milking" the cow is fairly hilarious. And then, to try to get out of the sun as early in the day as possible. We moved to the kiddie rides. We thought if we got these out of the way we could avoid the direct sun and the long lines.

The rides are the bees knees for the boys. The kidway is filled with your standard variety cars/boats/dinosaurs/butterflies etc. going around in a circle. Buts its about the equivalent to pure happiness when you are 4.

 First there were tractors. Then there were bumper boats.

 And then, the happiest face I've seen all year. Collin and Owen took their first ride on a rollercoaster. A small one at that, but still a roller coaster. I was actually a little bit anxious Collin would get scared. He's usually so very sensitive to new things, and I wondered if it would overwhelm him.

 But away we went, I rode with Collin and Chris with Owen while Drew manned the camera. I had no worries about Owen because when it comes to being timid Owen has not one iota of it. That boy is all in, all the time.

 This picture makes me smile everytime I look at it. Its just sheer joy on Collin's face. I could stare at it all day. I imagine that one day this is one of the things he'll have as a first memory of the state fair. he LOVED it.

 When we were finished they wanted to go again. The rollercoaster was a huge hit. I imagine Cedar Pointe is somewhere in our future as these boys grow.

 Then we were off to the Safari train. This is an old standby that Collin first rode when he was all of a year old I think.

 Finally, we rounded out the midway with the dinosaurs. What fun to see the boys tackle the rides by themselves for the first time. It so strange to me to see the differences between Collin and out Owen show themselves in everyday interactions. When Collin was 2 1/2 I couldn't have imagined he would have been able to ride the rides together-- he's timid and careful. But, Owen at 2 1/2 was so ready and excited to be on the rides without me.

 The boys took us next to the giant slide. This year I went down with Collin and for the first time we weighed enough to get some serious speed. I thought we were going to run into the end barrier.

 And then, to round out the adventure for the boys we went to our favorite place- the miracle of life barn.  Its no surprise that it was not in there, but we survived because of the giant fans they had in place for the poor miserable cows and sheep.

 After the miracle of life barn we wandered on to all the animals barns and got some lunch. At this point it was so ridiculously hot I could not be bothered to use the camera. So the pictures stop here. The boys though, enjoyed the fish pond, milkshakes, fishing pond, dog barn, and the list goes on.

This was the first year, in all the years we've attended that the fair had poor attendance. Really poor attendance. We couldn't believe how empty it was. But, it worked out I guess though because lots of people and super heat probably makes for extreme grumpiness.

All in all though, it was a great day for the boys, one that I'm sure they'll remember, and as always an important pillar of summer fun.