On the first day of summer vacation, we went strawberry picking, spent the rest of the day at the lake, and then hung out at a local town carnival until bedtime. We ran into a photographer friend I know at the farm, saw almost our entire Momfest group at the lake, and then bumped into one of our favorite Navy families at the carnival.

Maybe when my kids are older we’ll have super relaxed, unscheduled summers. But right now I need them to stay busy and tired, so they can’t complain about being bored or try to kill each other. Today is the fourth day of summer vacation. We dropped E off at the airport, went to a playground, walked a couple miles around a park, caught a ton of Pokemon, took Evan to a coding class, spent 2 hours at the library, ran some errands, went to karate and it’s still not bedtime. I love summer. The weather right now is fantastic. But if the kids ask for one more snack I’m going to sell them.

The Brooklyn Fair is the oldest agricultural fair in the country. But don’t worry, besides the adorable little fair museum building everything else was the true country fair experience. I don’t really mean that as a compliment, but it still makes me happy. People watching and deep fried stuff are two of my guiltiest guilty pleasures.

Linc was a champ, hanging out on my back almost the whole time. The kids liked the animals and teh food but they mostly wanted to go on rides. Since I am the meanest mother in the world I only bought a book of tickets, not wristbands, so they each got to go on a few things. As far as carnival rides go, everything seemed really sturdy – sturdy enough that I actually went on one of the high swinging things with Evan. No one died!

The Brooklyn Fair was the warm up for September, which will be absolutely full of fairs, food and long fun days with a baby on my back.

The boys at pizza and nachos…

The girls (and the baby) had clam strips.

We don’t know that girl. Evan just asked her to pour corn on his head. Of course she said yes.

Caroline was really good at milking the fake cow.

Those are apparently the biggest whoopie pies in the state. Country? World? I just remember they were very proud of them.

She would have watched the horses all night.

I love love love this picture. I’m going to enter it in next year’s fair’s photography category.

The big kids wanted to go on the “roller coaster”. Caroline was technically too short to go without a responsible person, but Evan was good enough for the guy working the gate.

She did NOT love the roller coaster. Poor child.