No trip to the fair

We took the kids to The Erie County Fair today. We boast the second biggest county fair in the country. I've never been to any other county fairs in which to compare it to, but this fair is not all about farm animals and rides. There is a tiger show, sea lion show, acrobats, and oh so much more. My biggest weakness-the food. That's right all my favorites, sugar dipped in grease and served with a topping of more sugar. I seek out the curly fries stand and drowned them babies in vinegar. Mmmm.... thirty-thousand calories of goodness. As hard as I looked I'm disappointed to report I did not find the donut burger stand, I did however, find the two foot fried dough stand.
I wish I could write this whole post on the food alone, but I have no intentions of having my pregnant friends seek me out with murder on their mind for me causing cravings. No, this post is about the craziness of taking almost 6 (the two youngest stayed with gram, but I gained my niece for a while. Explanation to follow) to the fair. I had it all planned, printed the map a week ago, used a marker to draw our path and times we should be in each spot, I printed the coupons, checked and rechecked the site, and for what? NOTHING!!!! Here is how my perfectly planned day went:
1. Should have been out he door at 12. With 7 kids I guess us leaving finally at 1:30 was on schedule.
2. Parked on wrong side of fairgrounds setting us back another half hour while kids screamed: I don't want to see the shows I want to go on the rides. To which I replied if we came to only go one rides we could have gone to a theme park instead. So as we stood in line at the rides ticket booth I checked off the shows we were missing in my mind. The map stuffed back in my purse as I admitted my defeat.
3. Niece got sick, had to take her back to van (another 45 minutes gone) to wait for my mother to pick her up. Now down to 5 kids.
4. Should have been cloudy, wasn't, sunburn, ouch!!!!!
5. Left my phone with my niece so no clock. Knock a couple more missed shows off the list.
6. wondering kids, looking for them, another 45 minutes (at least when you combine the three times they did it) lost.
7. Running low on funds after $5 games, food, trinkets, etc.

So to sum up the day I missed every show, the daily parade, the September 111th Mmemorial, and pretty much everything else I wanted to do. We did however come out with four goldfish (25 cents a piece at he pet store $5 at the fair cause I rock at that game), my curly fries, and a whole heep of fun. As we drove home to the sweet sound of 5 kids sleeping, I turned to my husband, smiled, and said I had a great time.

I'll post pictures tomorrow :)