Every August Iowa has it's state fair and it's always a blast. It's a family tradition to go. 

My mom used to take my sister and I, and I've continued taking my kids. 

We usually go once maybe twice each year. 

This yea my team at work did a team outing at the fair and I made shirts for us. That was we could kind of keep track of each other better since it gets so busy. This is the design my team decided on. 

Here's a few pictures from our team outing this year. 

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The next day we took the kids and they had so much fun. The weather was so nice!

The girls got the little pig head bands!

For it being hot out, Barrett did such a good job!

Inside one of the buildings they do a sculpture of some kind every year.  This year it was made out of balloons. The kids thought it was so cool. 

Watching the ducks and swans is always a highlight! 

Another favorite is the Little Hands on the Farm. The kids get to wear aprons and carry a bucket. They walk through different stations and learn about different types of farms and how the crops go from the farm to the market. They earn play money at the end to buy a snack in the store. The best part, this fun activity is 100% free!!

Later on the girls got to ride some rides. We don't like to spend a lot of time at the rides because they can get expensive and we have Adventure Land near us and that's full of rides. So we like to do things we can only do at the fair. But we can buy a packet of ride tickets that the girls can share and they usually get 3-4 rides out of it. Barrett was too little this year to go. He has a couple years until he's big enough to ride most of the rides. 

After the fair we hung out at our friends house that is within walking distance to the fair. That's where we usually park too so we are close. 

Stay tuned for part 2!!