Havin' a good time at the fair

On Sunday we woke up without much of a plan. After a lazy Saturday, I was itching to get out of the house, but didn't know what sounded good. There were a few ideas floating around in my head, but nothing grabbed me until I remembered hearing about a local fair in Queens. A few minutes looking it up online and I had the event info and directions. It wasn't too far, so we could make it before Elisa's mid-day nap. Perfect. We scrambled to get dressed and out the door with snacks and away we drove towards the Queens County Farm Museum in Floral Park. The parking was free which is always a good sign and the adult tickets were $7 each which seemed pretty reasonable. Even my cheapskate husband was pleased. Of course, I wasn't sure what to expect of the venue since it's been a good 25 years since I've been to a state fair of any kind. But the place looked big and had lots of animals on exhibit so I figured we could entertain Elisa for a couple of hours at least.

After making our way through the pens and pens of animals (cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, etc). where Elisa got up close and personal with the farm sights and smells, we ventured over to the Bavarian Oktoberfest Pavilion where "BEER" was advertised in big, bold letters. Now we were on to something. We grabbed a few cold ones and some wurst mit sauerkraut and apple strudel and settled in to watch the old time polka band play. Elisa and a few other kids were starting to dance and jump around and it was so nice and relaxing to watch. She danced and danced and danced some more for over an hour. Without stopping. She was all over the floor, laughing, shrieking, chasing her new best friend on the dance floor and having a great time. And I was pinching myself that outings like this exist--that Nacho and I got to sit and eat and have a drink while Elisa played and occupied herself without any crazy tantrums or constant oversight. We even ran into our friends Monica and Humphrey with their son Bix who also enjoyed some dancey dance time. It was shaping up to be a pretty awesome day and then I saw the funnel cakes. Now this is what a fair is all about. I'm pretty sure that Elisa agreed since she dug right into the hot little morsels, saying "mas, mas!" She stayed awake for another hour or so as we toured the rest of the farm and exhibits, but by the time we hit the car around 2 p.m., she was done. Within minutes, she was fast asleep and she surprisingly stayed down another 2 hours once we made it home. I got a nap. Nacho got to watch an entire Spanish futbol match in peace. It was a perfect ending to a very enjoyable day.

And in case you want to see what a whole lotta energy looks like, here's some footage of the dancing. Oh yeah.