Fair Time!

Two weekends ago I headed up north for the Mid State Fair in Paso. The first venture was to see Kelly Clarkson in concert. When I bought the tickets in March I signed up for her fan club which allowed me access to the pre-sale. After I purchased the tickets they did not give me the location of the seats, but said they would be fairly close to the stage, which was fine with me!

As the concert grew closer I was getting more and more anxious to find out where my seats were. FINALLY the day arrived and I got my tickets. Guess where they were?? FRONT ROW! NO joke. I thought we might be within the first 20 rows or something, but the first row?? Was I even a big enough fan to deserve front row? I didn't think so. I’m sure there were some bigger fans out there than me that deserved them more. Oh well. Tonight was my lucky night.

When we made it to our seats I was still in shock at how close we were.

Right when my friend Sam and I sat down we looked behind us to see one of our old co-workers in the row behind us! Then a few people down to our right was another old co-worker! I couldn’t believe that we were all sitting in the same area. I'm normally shocked to see one person I know, much less two sitting right near me!

Sam and I patiently waiting. (extreme close up I know).
So the show starts and Kelly is RIGHT THERE. I mean RIGHT THERE and not the size of an ant. I probably had perma grin for the first half hour because I could not believe we were in the front row and she was RIGHT in front of us. The whole show felt like it was a private concert. At one point she even looked down at Sam and I and smiled. We both looked at each other like ‘did she just do that?’ It was also really weird to know that the band members could actually see us...like our faces. You definitely didn’t want to get caught zoning out or texting while they are standing there in front of you.

Kelly and her band put on a great show. She sang all of her hits and a lot of my favorite songs from her new album. She even sang songs written by Rod Stewart, Patsy Cline, and Janet Jackson which was a total plus. I think more musicians should do that. Why not? Pay homage to the ones that have helped them.

At one point the super cool guitarist went all rock star on us and threw his pick in the audience…only to have it hit me in the head! However he threw it at the end of the song and when the song ended the arena went completely black and I couldn’t see anything. I told the dude next to me what happened and so we both were looking at the ground when the lights came on and he spotted the pick first and grabbed it! He said I could have it, but in the end I let him have it. Now of course I wish I would have kept it. Oh well. I really did deserve it having to listen to his wife think she was singing duets with Kelly all night. I should have told her that I didn’t pay $75 to hear her sing butcher Kelly's hits..

The next afternoon I headed back up to the fair with John for our annual visit. After we had our first round of fair junk food we decided to let it settle a bit before round two so we checked out the exhibits.
I once again entered a photo this year, but was very hesitant after losing last year, and I was feeling lazy. I probably wouldn’t have entered but I was also entering a photo from Sydney so I thought I might as well print one of my own if I was going to have to drive up to Paso anyway.

During the annual Steinbuck visit this past May Sydney had her new birthday camera in tow. A few weeks later when I went up to Ukiah we picked up her film from the trip. In the midst of photos of our garbage cans and many self-portraits, there was this one great shot of her flip flops on our deck. Right when Rebekkah and I saw it we both had the same thought…it was a total fair photo! I was more than happy to enter it in for Sydney and what do you know…she got first place!!
We actually ventured into a new hall this year that had a ton of baked goods including a cake decorating category! How crazy is that? It really felt like you could enter just about anything that was homemade.
We even saw some Christmas decorations, but I am tempted to enter in my award winning fudge next year. Who wouldn’t like the title ‘multi award wining fudge’?

After our exhibit perusing we were finally hungry enough for some more fair food. First stop….cinnamon rolls!
We normally don’t eat the whole thing, but for some reason we finished it all this year. Not good. I also wanted to get a license plate frame for the mini while we were there but we couldn’t think of a good saying. I should have planned ahead for that one.
After our traditional photo booth photo I then got to get my traditional shaved ice. I even checked and they did make it from a block of ice. It was pretty good, but the ones in Hawaii were still better.
They even had the slush puppy booth again so John scored another sweet slushy mixture. I even think it was the same dude who was working the booth last year.

Overall I think it was one of our best fair visits yet. I'm actually kind of sad we only get to go once a year. I guess it makes it that much special.