State Fair

The last week or so Justin has been pretty busy with work, but he only had a back-up alert this weekend so he had the whole time off. Saturday morning we went to the local farmer's market in downtown Great Falls. It's there every Saturday morning but this week was the first time we've made it over there. It was pretty neat, lots of fresh fruit and produce, stands with homemade jam and bread, tents with arts and crafts. It was bigger than I thought it would be given the size of the city. We walked around and Justin, of course, had to get a coffee. There was music and people everywhere. It looked like that was the place to be on a Saturday morning.

Later that day I was vacuuming and had a slight mishap. The vacuum was already upstairs so instead of carrying it downstairs, vacuuming up the stairs and then carrying it back down again, I decided to just vacuum down the stairs. It was going fine until about halfway down, when the vacuum fell and I caught it with my forearm. For about 15 seconds it felt like my arm had been broken in half. Then when I was almost done, the vacuum fell again, only this time I caught it with my forehead. There was a cut and welt near my temple. It was quite painful, but luckily, nothing too serious. I've learned my lesson and instead of being lazy next time, I'll just make the extra trips up and down the stairs.

Saturday night we went over to Nick and Fiona's house for a little housewarming party. They finally moved in a few houses down the street. One of the other guys from Justin's class got married a few weeks ago and his wife is up here now too. So there are four of us couples living on base. It's really great being able to see everyone so easily and to just walk 20 steps down the street to go hang out.

On Sunday, Justin and I met up with Nick, Fiona, and Nick's dad at the state fair. It was pretty fun, completely different than the atmosphere I'm used to. Once we got there, the boys decided they needed some food. Nick ordered fries and this is what he got:

The wall of french fries were tasty, as was the funnel cake. I love fair food, but sadly wasn't hungry enough to fully indulge in it. After the food extravaganza, we went and watched a couple of horse races. I've never seen one in person, so it was pretty cool to watch. People were betting on horses and talking about the different types of tickets you can bet on. We all picked horses, just for fun in our seats, and of course, my horse came in last. Not just last, waaaaaay last. He wasn't even close to the other three at the finish line. I felt kinda bad for him.

Aside from horses, there was also a pig race. I've never heard of pig racing but I think piglets are really cute so I made sure we saw the pig races. The lady announcing the pig races was super loud and super annoying, but the pigs were really cute.

The pig race people were from Kansas and also brought other animals for a petting zoo. There was a baby zebra and a kangaroo. Where on earth do people from Kansas get a zebra and a kangaroo. It was really sad to see the kangaroo in there. He looked depressed. Not that I can really tell what the animal is feeling, but still, it was sad. Animals like that shouldn't be in petting zoos. Oh well. Not much I can do about it.

Seeing all the farm animals at the fair made me wish I had grown up on a farm. It would be really neat to have pigs and sheep and goats and rabbits and chickens. But then I remember how much I like being able to get to the grocery store in 5 minutes or less and realized that the farm life is not for me. I'm a city girl through and through. Maybe after four years here in Montana, things will be different, but for now, I like civilization.