"F" is for fair... which is code for funnel cake!

when one goes to a fair, one MUST have funnel cake! 

at the end of july, for the first time ever, we visited the california state fair in sacramento. i was having second thoughts about going... it gets so flippin' HOT here in the summer! but it was the last weekend, and raf is big enough to go on some rides, so bo coaxed me into giving it a shot.

the fair was nothing if not huge. i'd been to a couple of fairs in SoCal, and this was easily three or four times the size of those. they had everything you can imagine that would be in a fair, including the days of the dinosaur exhibit. but we had to pass on that one, much to my dismay (who doesn't like dinosaurs?), because of the long line of people waiting to get in to see it. hopefully, it'll be back next year.

of course, we spent most of our time at the kiddie rides and looking at animals. raf couldn't get enough of the car rides. he's constantly saying "i like driving" now, when he's pedaling along on his little tricycle. interesting fact: some of the kiddie rides at the fair were from michael jackson's neverland ranch! i found that kind of creepy, but then that's just me.

raf and i chugging along on the cars. 
he can't wait till he's 16 and old enough to learn to drive!

i was pretty awestruck at the livestock nursery... 

For the 27th year, a team of veterinarians and 35 trained students from UC Davis' School of Veterinary Medicine will staff the fair's livestock nursery around-the-clock to make sure that the farm animals born at the fair and their mothers are healthy and well cared for. Fairgoers can observe the births and learn about other aspects of farm life, while the veterinary students gain valuable clinical experience. 

as i crouched down beside raf next to the stall of a pregnant cow, i realized (and a preschool trip to the petting zoo confirmed this) that he is pretty nervous around the bigger animals. he'd look at the horses and cows, but not really go near them. i can imagine why. from the eye level perspective of a three-year-old, big animals are exactly that: BIG... and a pregnant cow is way beyond big!

among the animals, raf enjoyed the fish, reptiles and insects the most. he's enthralled by snakes, spiders, butterflies, grasshoppers and turtles. the interactive nature of the exhibits doubled the fun.

other cool stuff were located at the shopper's expo, including the aerospace museum of california exhibit. to a little boy, if there's one thing better than cars, after all, it's got to be airplanes! then, around the corner from the planes, a news channel had a studio setup where you could stand in front of a blue screen and professional video camera, pretending to be a weather reporter. you'd actually see yourself on tv. many of the older kids were having a grand ol' time with that!

oh, i shouldn't forget, we also found "jerry's jerky" within the shopper's expo, and we enjoyed a "cowboy slab" of teriyaki flavored, old fashioned, homemade beef jerky. yummy!

they had several free concerts and shows, and we happened to catch the multi-cultural youth dance group performing a few traditional hawaiian and filipino dances. i wasn't sure what the first few dances were (including the first filipino dance, when the photo above was taken), but the last was definitely the tinikling. when i was a kid, we all wanted to do the tinikling, since it's almost more like a game than a dance... unfortunately, no one wanted to be the ones hefting the weighty bamboo poles! come to think of it, the dance is really quite a health hazard... imagine having your foot caught between two heavy bamboo poles as they are slid closed (or, more like, slammed shut)!

by the end of the day, both kids were pooped out!

altogether, despite the blazing sun, we had a great time. the funnel cake was the perfect way to end the day... bo picked bavarian cream... super scrumptious! it reminded me of the bavarian cream and chocolate doughnuts we used to get from dunkin' donuts when i was little, only better. if you've never had bavarian cream funnel cake before, add it to your list of must-try unhealthy snacks NOW.

bo shows no mercy and takes a chunk out of the cake.