The Iowa State fair a.k.a Tomas eats his way through Iowa

I know I mentioned here how generous my parents are, but let's get serious, they are really generous. On Friday they took my kids and me to the Iowa State Fair and spoiled us rotten.

The littles got to ride dirty the many hours we were there. Not "dirty" in the sense that they were hiding crack somewhere on their persons, just "dirty" in the literal sense. They were a couple a pigs in there.

First stop? Food. Obvi. Being a vegetarian at a State Fair where Beef is basically your state bird, color and song makes things complicated. Oh and pork. We have lots of pork too. My dad got 2.

The kids shared a footlong corndog. By "kids" I mean Tomas and Tariku.

Then they washed it down with these. Because why not?

Then, in what was surely the best decision making ever, we went to the Knapp center. This is a place with lots of agricultural education going on. Great place. The problem is that on every TV screen there was birth happening. As in real, slimy, bloody animal birth. The kids were less than impressed.

Tariku was probably the most horrified. At one point he said, "This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen but I can't stop watching!!!"

Dailah was equally mortified at what was to be the future she's always dreamed of (the girl can't wait to give birth...until now perhaps).

Even though it was an educational center, they did have some leanings in their "education".

Clearly that sign was not talking about the overwhelming majority of hens. Mmm, these little guys are the picture of health.

Anywho... where were we? Oh yes. To the big slide. It's really a must do when you have kids. And by that I mean you literally must do it, it's way too much fun. Tomas towards the middle, Dailah and hotflawedmama below him, Tariku almost done and Bini's little body finished first.

This is the part where I almost run over Bini. Notice Dailah's face. Pure joy.

Trysten has been under the weather for a week or so. The only Tyelenol I had were some pills you swallow. It took him about 5 minutes but he did it.

On to the alligator wrestler. For a day that was supposed to be 72 and rainy off and on, it was HOT. Binyam went topless and Dailah went Britney Spears.

It was worth it though, after 4 hours an hour the kids got to hold a real live alligator.

Tariku went to the bathroom 4,635,599 times.

Kids got some free loot that has since been mostly trashed.

Tomas ate a turkey leg.

I tried some cheese curds but ended up sharing...with Tomas.

Tomas ate a hot beef sundae.

I shuddered imagining Tariku getting his hands on one of those smoothies.

But ended up getting one for myself and my sister to share. My spirits picked up immediately.

We went on the sky lift. Trysten was with his grandpa most of this week, add to that he didn't feel well, and he just wanted to be around me. And by that I mean mostly on top of me.

We ate ourselves into comas.

Tomas ate some more. This time some of my dad's gyro.

We saw the butter cow. Tomas and Binyam's first time. They were rightfully astonished. Trysten just wanted to eat it.

Just for fun.

Then Binyam's tiny little belly staged a war against all of the fried goodness and we spent some QT in these hell holes.

Alas I found something on a stick I could enjoy. A PBJ.

We ended the night with the kids at the lego tent.

It was a really awesome day. The kids held up well despite being there for over 8 hours. After they got a final corndog and piece of pizza my parents took them home so that my sister and I could hang out with old friends. See? Generous.