Tomatoes, pigs, fair rides and birthday cake

Yesterday was my 37th birthday! And it was a low key kind of a day. My husband had to work in the morning, so I took the kids to the library and then to a local farm market. At the farm market, the owner was putting out cherry tomatoes and started talking to my kids and offered them each a cherry tomato. Jacob gobbled his up, Ben took one bite of his and Rebecca politely told her no, as she doesn't like tomatoes. I told the woman that Jacob eats cherry tomatoes like candy. Then we went on our shopping. As we were leaving, she said bye to the kids and then told Jacob that she wanted to give us a whole container of the tomatoes for him to take home. Talk about sweet and unexpected. That is why we go to this market. The people are so sweet and are extremely customer friendly-- (as we were leaving I saw one of their male employees gathering sweet corn for an elderly woman so she would not have to get out of her car!). They are really an asset to our community. 

After we came home, Bill came home from work and we went out to lunch. I really didn't want to spend a lot of money on my lunch and I knew that the kids would enjoy a lunch at McDonald's so that is what we had--using a gift card I had received at the end of the school year from a tutoring client. 

After lunch, we headed out to the Knox County Fair. This was the first year we had to pay for Rebecca to get in as she is 9 and 8 and under get in free. 

We first walked through the various animal barns. One of the first animals that we saw were pigs and Benjamin had a fascinating conversation with a huge pig that kept snorting and responding to Ben. Maybe he has a future career as a pig whisperer. 

We also saw cows, sheep, bunnies, horses, chickens, ducks and turkeys. We didn't see any birds last year as they had been banned because of bird flu fears, but they were back this year. 

The kids wanted to ride some rides and play some games so we headed in that direction. In the kiddie ride area we were disappointed in that they only had 2 games for kids to play and not the balloon pop game that Rebecca has played every year and kept saying that she wanted to play again this year. 

Ben kept saying he wanted to ride the "roar" (dino) ride and we got him in it and then as soon as it started he started screaming and crying and wanting off. The guy running it actually stopped it so he could get off. 

Ben did ride the train with Jacob and the Merry-go-round with Bill, Jacob and Rebecca.  We found that Rebecca was too tall for many of the kiddie rides this year which she was a little disappointed in. 

However, after we walked over to the adult ride area she found a couple rides to ride that she loved. She went down the giant slide 2 times and LOVED it!

She also rode her first roller coaster type ride. She was very brave! 

After that we decided to get a snack-- funnel cake for me (and the kids) and an elephant ear for Bill. We also got icees for the kids to enjoy. 

After finishing our snacks, we headed back to the van. While on the way, we ran into our good friends, whose daughters are involved in 4-H and were doing horse stuff. So we talked to them for a few minutes while my friend had a break from working the arena. 

When we came home, Bill surprised me with flowers, a card and a birthday cake. Bill and the kids sang happy birthday to me then since Bill had to go back into work in the evening. 

After Bill went back to work, I made dinner for the kids and just relaxed. I also gave baths and let the kids have some cake before bed.

Overall, it was a good day to be turning 37.