meet me at the fair.

meet me in st. louis, louis

meet me at the fair

don't tell me the lights are shining

any place but there

we will dance the hoochie koochie

i will be your tootsie wootsie

meet me in st. louis, louis

meet me at the fair

i can picture the fair scene very vividly in my head right and i have to say that our gair experience was exactly the same opposite. holy cow. the night started off great. kelli and i took the kiddles to panera. does life get any better? then we headed over. kelli and i did miss the memo concerning the daisy dukes and cowboy boots, but we decided to forge ahead anyway. ella was ecstatic over the poop smell cows and i filled my head with thoughts of good behaving grandeur. actually i can't say everything was bad. she had a good time until the end. the heat, combined with a lot of classy people didn't help the situation. but let's just say she screamed the last good 30 or so minutes prior to leaving the gair.

it was verrrry cute. the hand holding. and might i say that ella did NOT initiate it every time. emma + ella = bossom buddies. well until ella decided it was best to scream and kick like a maniac. emma probably has terminated their friendship. i'll have to check with kelli.

ella has no fear. this is pretty much common knowledge. and her love for reptiles and scaly creatures is beyond anything i can fathom. she wanted to touch and see everything. she was even going to touch this huge snake. but trying to keep an eye on her and pull nascar evasive maneuvers with the stroller through the tiniest of tiny spaces was not happening. amen. 

there was a whole posse of bright colorful birds (i know there is a legit name for them). somehow i managed to only capture one. and with those skills, i'll be putting on a picture taking clinic in the near future, be there or be not there.

this picture is the antithesis of how she acted the rest of the night.

did i mention that i don't like petting zoos? there's animal poop on the ground. it stinks. there's a ton of people. who knows when an animal is going to decide to go a-wall. not for me. luckily kelli isn't a wuss and took an of-course-i'm-gonna-wanna-go-ella. needless to say. one goat had ria and they almost got pooped by another.

the start of ella's demise. she saw the ferris wheel. well obviously, it's tall and sticks out. and immediately wanted to ride the merry-go-round. ferris wheel, merry-go-round? not exactly the same but oh so similar to an almost 3 year old. that's besides the point. she was like fit throwing i-wanna-ride-the-merry-go-round. well i wanted to take photo booth pictures so the merry-go-round was a no go cause of major attitude, however this year the photo booths were RIGHT ACROSS FROM THE MERRY-GO-ROUND. shoot me please. $6 later ella and i were on the merry-go-round. highlight of her night so it was worth it. plus i learned my camera has this pretty legit one color enhancing feature. win-win in my books.

hopefully gair pictures will be a yearly tradition. except when ella gets to the point when she wants to risk her life and ride the rides. did you know you can buy 80 tickets for $70? what a bargain freakin rip off. never gonna happen. but we did miss you at the gair. i'm sure you missed being mortified by a screaming hella ella as well. hopefully you'll be able to gair it up with us next year.

♥