The Heinlights: My Fair Lady

It's county fair time in Iowa. It's a great season to get outside, see who raised the biggest boar, and eat whatever you can that someone has figured out how to put on a stick and deep fat fry.

This past week we had an oppressive heat wave....just in time for the Washington County Fair (my hometown)....

Nathan's hometown of Monticello hosts The Great Jones County Fair every summer.

My home county is known for growing the largest cornstalk in the world....it's even in the Guinness Book of World Records and I do believe the record still stands....my fairgrounds has a replica of the cornstalk...I don't know how tall it is....maybe 15 feet or so?

Here I am standing next to what's responsible for putting Washington County on the map.....

***Update***

My fair is a great little fair...I have many fond memories of the fair...I was once a 4-H kid. I showed bucket bottle calves and horses mostly. I can't believe I'm going to post this picture, I'll probably regret it in the morning. Here I am with one of my calves....

Don't I look ecstatic!!

Giving one a bath before we head out to the fair....they had names like Oreo, Spot, and Patches...you know...real 'original' names for black and white, spotted, Holsteins.

And since I'm embarrassing myself, I might as well embarrass Nathan too....he was a little more serious about the fair than I was...here he is showing his horse at the Iowa STATE Fair....La Dee Dah!!

I didn't make it out to the Washington County fairgrounds this year...but there will be many more fairs to come.

I have to give Nathan props...his county fair takes the cake. When Nathan and I started dating, my Dad of course asked where he was from....when he found out he was from Monticello...he said 'well, that's where The Great Jones County Fair is held!' (it seems as though this fair has a long tradition of greatness).

One of the reasons for it's 'greatness' is because they always book great entertainment. I am a live music lover. I love going to concerts and I'll sit and listen to almost anyone if they are playing live. I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a 'country music girl' but I've seen by far more country music stars in concert than anyone else....largely in part due to the Great Jones County Fair and then of course due to the Houston Rodeo.

The Jones County Fair has a nack for booking the new 'up and coming' stars right before they 'hit it big'. Over the years we've seen Martina McBride, Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Toby Keith, and Rascal Flatts just to name a few.

This year was no different and the fair did not disappoint. It's nice to know that since we've moved back to isolation that we can still catch a good concert. Our friends Mike and Andrea came down for the Jason Aldean concert Thursday night....

Before the concert we did our best to set up ourselves for future heart attacks...we inhaled steak tips, tacos, pizza, and topped it all off with fried cheesecake and ice cream.

It ended up starting to rain on us which was awesome...one, it weeded out the fuddy duddies in the audience and revved up the crowd a little more....and two, after the heat wave we've had it was warm and refreshing!

Nathan and Mike decided it was too wet to wear their shirts....

Nathan showing Andrea the love....

Friday night Lady Antebellum played and I took three of our technicians to the concert. Forgive me, I didn't take any pics...I must have been too wrapped up in my deep fat fried cheesecake.

A severe thunderstorm rolled through the fairgrounds that evening. We got POURED on...again it was awesome....until the wind picked up and things turned a bit severe. Kerensa...one of our techs is about 8 months pregnant...and I have to say she's probably the coolest pregnant lady I've ever met. After the concert was over and the wind started gusting I took off for the car. If I was going to die, I wanted to be in my car....not under the grandstand amongst all the bodies. I ditched my flip flops and ran through the mud/manure mixture that only one can find at a fair and high tailed it for the car...and Kerensa kept up with me the entire time. Funny though....all I could think about was 'I hope we don't get cutaneous larval migrans from running through hookworm infested 'mud'. I've been teasing the other two girls that they must have been skipping in the rain back to the car....they weren't as 'speedy' as we were.

Saturday night my mother in law and I went to the Hinder and Seether concert. Figures...the one night I packed my poncho and umbrella not a drop of rain fell from the sky. We didn't make it through the entire concert but we got to see the Budweiser Clydesdales....

These handsome guys make it to the fair every year. They bring 9 horses and their Dalmatian. They were moved into the horse barn after their tent blew down Friday night.