Early spring 2024 one of Michael's co-workers found out that Lauren Daigle was coming to the Puyallup fair. She asked Michael if he thought we would like to go with her. That was a big huge YES...since Lauren Daigle is Ella's favorite singer. She then asked if Ella would like Justine to come and I thought that sounded like fun so I had her get 3 tickets for us. I found out that the tickets included entrance into the fair so our plan was to spend the whole day at the fair and then go to the concert.
On the morning of Saturday, August 31st, Ella and I picked Justine up around noon and then headed out. We stopped at Jack in the Box for lunch so we wouldn't have to eat two extremely overpriced meals that day. I also told the kids that I would be paying for parking and dinner, but it was up to them if they wanted to buy any trinkets or tickets to go on rides.
We came in at the Gold Gate and normally the Sasquatch is right there when you first come in, but they are doing some sort of construction so he was moved over to the entrance to the Pavilion.
We went in the Pavilion and had fun looking around at all the things. I found a sign I wanted to buy Robin and the kids found some cute things, but we didn't want to carry them around all day so we decided to come back right before the concert and buy them. Ella didn't want the rock she wanted to be sold so she hid them under one of the decorations and decided it would be meant to be if it was still there when we came back.
As we were walking along we came to the firefighter booth. They had a spinning wheel where you go to spin for prizes. If I remember correctly...I won a Fire Hydrant squishy, Ella won a pencil and Justine won playing cards. As we were walking around we found this fun stage area with live music. They also had covered areas with picnic tables which was so nice because it was supposed to get to 90 degrees that day. We sat and listened to music and Justine taught us a new card game.
I had been looking at the map/program with all the times so we could take advantage of all the free stuff. Ella really wanted to see the horses so we planned to go to the next show.
When it was getting close to the time we walked right over to the arena and found seats. It was hot in there!!!
We watched the show horses and it was fun seeing them, but we honestly could barely make out what the announcer was saying. The sound system could use some help.
After being so hot I wanted something yummy and cool so we walked over and found the Dole Whips.
We shared one and it was so yummy!
After that we walked through some of the other barns...I was hoping there was going to be bunnies or something cute to look at, but there pigeons!
Around this time we were getting hungry so we went in search of food. These kids are the most indecisive kids ever! They finally decided on a chicken sandwich and fries. I was paying for their food and then I turned around and they were gone. I was like where are they! They saw that I was looking for them and wasn't seeing them so they climbed up and started waving their hands around to get my attention.
While they waited for their food to be ready I walked over and got my favorite...a Greek Gyro. After that we walked back to the stage area to eat so we could sit in the shade. Unfortunately I didn't notice my Gyro didn't have any sauce on it. I wasn't about to walk all the way back so I just ate it...it was still yummy!
When I was looking at the schedule times I saw they had some free plays you could see so we planned to go see Beauty and the Beast. It's my favorite Disney movie ever. This play was not that though....it was a rendition of Beauty and the Beast and it was so outlandish. It was a dumpster fire you couldn't look away from. After the opening song I looked at the kids and was like....we can go! They wanted to stay so we did and it didn't really get any better. When it was over Ella was like...well that was a waste of time! It sure was!
We also went and saw baby piglets, artwork which we got to vote for and the horticultural displays that we also got to vote for. As it got closer to the concert we decided to head back to the Pavilion to buy the stuff we found earlier. The kids' rocks were still there so they bought them. I bought the funny sign for Robin and a ring.
Even though it was 90 degrees I wasn't sure how cold it would get once the sun went down so we walked over to the van so I could grab my sweatshirt.
On our way to the Grandstand we saw they had free archery so went in there to try it out. Justine and I gave it a shot while Ella watched.
The first shot I didn't have my elbow rotated out so the string caught my arm...thankful it looks worse than it felt. It was really fun though!
We got in line to go into the Grandstand literally having no idea where the seats were. As we started walking in I realized that we weren't going to the Grandstands we were on the floor!
We were in row 18!! At first we showed up at our seats and there were people sitting in them. I doubled checked our tickets and sure enough they were ours. We talked to the people sitting there and then they realized they were actually in row 8 not 18. They were totally fine moving after that.
I had no idea where Lisa and Jan (Michael's co-workers who got the tickets) were, but they showed up a bit before the show. I thought they had been at the fair all day, but they had actually been out thrifting instead.
Blessing Offer was the opening act for Lauren Daigle and he was awesome....I love his song Brighter Days. After he was finished it took quite a while for Lauren to come out, but she was worth the wait.
Our seats were on the aisle and instead of being blocked by the person in front of them Ella and Justine decided to just stand out in the aisle. It was so fun standing up and singing worship songs with a bunch of strangers. It was awesome and it was so great for Ella and Justine to have their first concert be together.
After the concert was over Lisa wanted to treat everyone to Crepes. Who was I to say no! Actually I did tell her that we could all share one and she was totally fine if we each wanted to get one. I said we'd just get two so we could try two different flavors, but then standing in line it was so hard to decide and she told me to just get 1 for each of us so that's what we ended up doing. The favorite one was definitely the strawberries and Nutella one.
The second one we tried was a turtle one and I didn't care for that one much.
We also got the banana and chocolate one...it was just chocolate syrup. If it had been Nutella it would have been better, but it was still yummy!
The Crepe gang!!!
In September after we got back from Maui, I found out that the youth group wanted to go to the fair. I went to the school district to get our kids their free tickets to the fair and I got one for me since I'm an educator. It ended up only being Yeaab (Youth Pastor), Me, Jack, Ella and Justine. I decided to drive since it was such a small group.
One cool thing was we got free parking because the machine to run cards wasn't working so that saved us about $20! Prior to going into the fair I decided to I wanted a pink drink from Starbucks so we went over there and I bought everyone a drink. Yummy!
Once we got inside our first stop was the free archery.
This time everyone tried it out.
Even Ella!
I had an even better teacher than the last time and I actually hit in the yellow and red. The first time I tried it I was almost off the target completely.
We hadn't walked around in that same area much the first time we were there since we had to get to the concert so this time we wandered around. We found these giant chess boards and decided to play a couple of games.
I beat Ella, but she did pretty good since she's really never played before.
Then I played against Justine and he kicked my butt!
When we finished up with chess we headed outside and found a band playing. Some of their dance moves were interesting, but it was fun!
More sasquatch pictures!
We spent a bunch of time in the ShowPlex where all the booths are where you can buy stuff. Jack and Justine tested out some of the mattresses. Ella ended up buying music note earrings, I bought 5 packets of season that you mix with sour cream and mayo to make dips and Jack bought a really cool leather bracelet. We also tried some very interesting flavors of popcorn. I actually was able to trick the kids into trying dill flavor. There were some really yummy flavors too, but the bags were so expensive plus I didn't want to carry around bags of popcorn all day. Thankfully the dips packets fit inside my purse.
For lunch we wandered around for a bit. Ella and Justine couldn't figure out what they wanted. Jack decided on a piece of pizza and a lemonade. Yeaab and I wanted BBQ so we went to Pete's BBQ. I didn't realize that it was the same BBQ place that's close to our church. It was yummy!
We were able to find seats together under the covered seating. I didn't eat all my food so I shared with Ella & Justine.
This is my all-time favorite picture of them!
I also brought cards with me just in case Justine forgot his. We went over to the same stage area where we could sit under the covered area and listen to music and play cards. The musical acts weren't as good as the ones we saw before, but it was still nice to take a break and chill.
We did a few other things as well...we were able to walk through the horse barn and see all the horses, we saw the baby piglets again, we saw cows and then we went through the artwork area again.
To finish off our day I bought a Strawberry and Nutella Crepe for Jack and I to share and Justine got one for him and Ella to share. If I remember correctly Yeaab tried a Dole Whip for the first time. We weren't able to stay very late because Jack had a birthday party he needed to get to. This year was actually the most fun I've had at the fair since I was a kid. Tickets for the rides are always so expensive and I usually just get pissed off with how much money we are spending, but the two times we visited this year it was really fun to try to find ways to have fun without spending an insane amount of money. Plus just hanging out with these kids is fun all by itself!
