Brown Swiss

The girls and I attended the Hennepin County Fair last month.  I was expecting a pretty good fair.  But, what I found was a crappy fair that was set up in a field on the outskirts of town.  The rides were cheesy old style rattle trap rides from the 70s.  I went broke putting them on the rides.  The kids enjoyed it though and that's all that matters. 

We then walked over by the "old fashioned" town that was set up.  People were dressed in character and playing their "part."  I will use the word cheesy again.  I was told by one of the performers to step aside (in her lovely accent).  They were getting ready to do a reenactment of a bank robbery.  Oh Lord...all of a sudden they were shooting at each other and then a bunch of them dropped dead on the ground.  I quickly turned the kids around and started walking the other way.  Emmy was questioning me on what happened. 

We then went over to all the "booths/tents/vendors."  The girls got their face painted (cost $3/each).  Emmy got her face painted like a kitty.  (dot on the nose & three lines across the cheek.)  Yep...3 bucks for that.  Erin got a heart on her cheek.  The face painting lady told me that you could go two booths down and get your picture taken with Cinderella & Toy Story characters.  I was excited because the girls LOVE Cinderella & Toy Story.  We got to the booth and discovered it was a cardboard cut out.  SERIOUSLY!!!

The "barn" was more like a petting zoo.  No barn existed.  They had a bunch of different kinds of goats, sheep, cows, etc that you could walk through and pet.  We fed some of the animals. 

The best part was seeing the brown swiss cow.  This reminded me so much of my grandma's farm.  Even though I wasn't even born when they had cattle on the farm...I still remember all the stories and remember seeing pictures growing up. My mom always told stories of milking cows and grandpa Fred's love for the barn/cattle. 

Emmy didn't want to get close to the cows.  Erin was a little more brave.

On a separate trip to the Mall of America, I stumbled upon this awesome millinery shoppe!!!  My grandma Hazel would have loved this store.  She always told the story..."When I was 15, I lied my age so that I could get a job at Dayton's.  I worked in the Millinery Department...They wore hats back in those days." 

Oh My!!...grandma, you would have loved this store!  Memories...