New Mexico State Fair 2010

New Mexico's state fair is advertised as "like all the holidays rolled into one." Hearing that, I was eager to take Adelaida ... and ended up taking her twice: after work one evening last week by myself and again last Saturday with Dale. While the fair wasn't quite as great as "Hallow-Labor-Fourth-Giving," we still had a great time.

Note the leash-backpack and the ankle band!

We started at the "tag your tots" booth -- a state police initiative to tag kids so that it is relatively easy to reunite lost children with lost parents. Adelaida was cautiously interested in the ankle band the policewoman held out to her, until she realized it was going on her leg. Much screaming ensued and I ended up taking the ankle band from the policewoman and putting it on Adelaida's leg myself. She spent much of the remaining time at the fair pulling at it and saying "off please." I just hate to ignore a request from Adelaida when she uses good manners to ask for something, but the ankle band stayed on. In fact, I was so afraid of losing her in the crowd that I pulled out the dog-leash-backpack so that Adelaida could walk by herself without getting away from us.

Next we visited the "petting zoo" -- I put that in quotes because there were signs as we walked in that read "please do not put your hands in the cages." Well, it was at least a good opportunity to look at some animals. Most of the cages had both baby and adult animals, so she saw a cow and a calf, a sheep and a lamb, chickens and some chicks, and a pig and several piglets. Surprisingly, she seemed to enjoy the chickens more than any of the other animals.

McDonald's Farm was next -- this is a mock farm where kids are "hired as farm hands" as they walk in the area and visit several stations where they learn something about working on a farm and complete certain tasks (like "gather two eggs from the henhouse" or "drive the tractor around the corn field" or "milk the cow"). It was a lot of fun -- so much fun that I took Adelaida to this area both times we visited the fair. Adelaida had two favorites here: riding the tractor (with some power from her Daddy, since her legs are much too short to reach the pedals) and carrying around the basket that she was given to collect her farm produce. She called it a bucket and was reluctant to give it back when we were done!

McDonald's Farm also had live cow-milking demonstrations, at which the kids sat around the cow trailer while "Grace" the cow was milked (first by hand, then with an electric milker). Adelaida was pretty sure the animal in front of her was a cow, and insisted on telling everyone that it was a cow and that cows say "Buuuuuuuu" (she learned the cow sound when most words started with the "b" sound, and has stubbornly stuck with it ever since). At one point in the demonstration, the demonstration guy was talking and the cow suddenly belted out a very loud "MOOOOOOOOOOOOO." The demonstration guy stopped talking when he heard that, all the other kids were quiet because they had been listening to the demonstration guy, and Adelaida decided to talk back to the cow -- she stood up and said "BUUUUUUUUUUU" right back to the cow! Everyone laughed, Adelaida sat down, and the demonstration continued.

After turning in her eggs, fruits, and vegetables at McDonald's Farm, we visited the main fairway for lunch, then stopped by the alpaca barn before leaving. Adelaida LOVED alpacas last year, and thought they were pretty neat animals this year as well. Did you know that alpacas say "woof woof"? Adelaida taught me that at the fair this year, although we never did hear an alpaca speak to verify that. Admittedly, they do look a bit like dogs with really long necks, so maybe they speak like dogs too!

We had a great time at the fair this year. Adelaida enjoyed the animals, the farm, and all the people. (She still likes to point out all the hats, dogs, bikes, and babies she sees; there weren't many dogs or bikes at the fair, but there were enough hats and babies that she was pretty busy finding them all!)

Here is another picture, of Adelaida sitting on an alpaca at the fair last year. I am amazed at how much she has changed in the past year!