I stand in front of this ferris wheel...

... and I wonder what am I doing here?

We spent last Friday afternoon and evening at the Belleville Fair. We usually go to the one in Coe Hill to see the demolition derby, but we had company in the city that weekend so we bribed the boys with a trip to the Quinte Exhibition in Belleville instead.

It's a good old fashioned country fair, with livestock, vegetables, crafts, and a midway. There was a Poultry Building with baby chicks hatching, and unlike at city fairs, they let you manhandle the chicks. Everyone knows that there's nothing cuter than soft, fluffy, little yellow chicks.

My favourites were the prize-winning chickens. I dream of having chickens in my backyard (even though I can barely keep the two children and dog that I already have alive under control). If I ever were to realize my dream they wouldn't be Plain Jane chickens - they'd look like this Martha Stewart-ish prizewinner.

After dragging the boys away from the Poultry building, they spent the rest of the afternoon running from ride to ride. It wasn't busy and there weren't any lines, so they really got their money's worth out of the all-you-can-ride passes. Cal loved the pirate ship (even though he looked like he was going to throw up his first time on) and Matthew loved the bumper cars. He only wanted to crash Cal, of course. It's nice that they're big enough to go on the rides together now because I don't have the stomach for it anymore.

They were like the energizer bunnies - at 10pm Alan and I had to beg for mercy and hustle them to the car. We had an hour long drive along country highway to get back to the cottage, and Tessa was waiting for us.

All in all, it was a fun day on their last weekend of freedom. It's hard to believe, but its back to school on Tuesday!