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October 16, 2015 by: Nusrat

State Fair of Texas with Kids

State Fair of Texas - With Kids

The State Fair of Texas is here! I’m always excited to go to the Fair but this year I was a little apprehensive because it would be my first time attending with the kids. The last time I went to the State Fair I went on a weekend, rode a couple of roller coaster rides, ate almost every fried food there was and played games until the place closed down.

This year, not so much. Here is a list of Do’s & Don’ts for taking your young kids to the State Fair of Texas, based on my experience last week.

State Fair of Texas

I’m shielding him from OU

Do: Go during the weekdays to avoid the crowds. Thursday afternoon was perfect for us. No lines anywhere and plenty of room to walk with a stroller.  We did notice a lot more people started coming in later in the afternoon when it was cooler and most kids were getting out of school.

Don’t: Go during the hottest part of the day. We reached there around 1 pm and even though we were armed with sunscreen, hats and sunglasses, it was still a sunny 91F outside. Kids (and adults) don’t last very long outside in the heat.

Do: Check out the daily discounts for admission. For example, you could bring in an empty Dr. Pepper can on Tuesdays and get in for $5. Kids under 3 are free and most school districts provide school children with a free ticket. Use it!  There are also senior discounts and lots of retailers sell advance purchase discounts. Spend your money for all the fun inside the fair not for admission.

Don’t: Eat a lot of fried food within five minutes of walking into the Fair. Thanks to Rambo’s amazing self control we bought the first fried food we saw – a cookies and cream funnel cake. It was delicious, entirely too big and it filled us up, so we didn’t feel like eating anything else for a long time. And really, funnel cake? You can eat those anywhere. Save room in your belly for the Big Tex Choice Awards.

Cookies & Cream Funnel Cake at the State Fair of Texas

Yes, I’d do it again.

Speaking of the Big Tex Choice Awards….

Do: Eat at least one thing that won an award this year! Eating Fair Food is what the Texas State Fair is all about. This year, Fernie’s Holy Moly Carrot Cake Roly won for Best Tasting and I can’t describe how good it was. Here is an excerpt from the State Fair website to give you an idea.

“Golden-baked bread swirled with cinnamon has been flattened and filled with moist carrot cake, plump raisins and crunchy julienned carrots. Rolled with a light coating of cream cheese and then breaded in a mixture of panko, graham crackers, cinnamon and nutmeg – holy moly this is far from your typical dessert! Drizzled with cream cheese frosting and lightly dusted with powdered sugar, this divine confection is served with extra caramel on the side as well as a caramel macchiato cream sauce.”  

Winner of 2015 Best Tasting at the Texas State Fair

I have no words

Do: Bring a stroller. We brought along our Baby Jogger stroller with the Glider board for the preschooler to ride on when his legs were tired. I got stopped several times by people telling me how awesome the glider board attachment was. Strollers can also be rented out and you can bring in your own wagons too. Little legs can’t walk so far and the Fairgrounds are big.

Don’t:  Try to do everything. There are over 100 performances daily at the Fair. Between the Auto show, live music, animal stunts, rides, games, food, cook-offs & shopping there is no way you can do it all in one day. Pick and choose what your family will enjoy the most and hit those up.

Do: Expect to spend a lot of time at the Kidway area of the Midway. That’s where the little kid rides and scaled down games are. Nice thing is that every kid wins a prize. So the preschooler thought he was awesome and ‘really, really good’ at shooting water at a target.

Midway Games at the State Fair of Texas

I lost count how many times they played this one game.

Don’t: Forget to buy a Big Tex Game card if you want to play games at the Midway. It costs $10 for 20 credits. Most games were 10 credits so about $5/game. Those 50 cent coupons are only good for food and rides.

Do: Check out the Children’s Health Barnyard where you can feed farm animals and other not so farm animals. Like Camels and Zebu’s. Be sure to secure your overly excited toddler from trying to open the gates and going inside the animal pen.

Don’t: Feed the Giraffe. They drool. I saw a lady with her hands cupped full of Giraffe drool and I nearly threw up. Barnyard smells – all good. Giraffe drool? Vom.

Do: Check out Little Hands on the Farm. It was adorable. The kids got a hands on experience of how farmers grow food. They got to feed chickens, collect eggs, plant seeds, harvest crops and drive a miniature tractor. Super cute. Fun enough to change the preschooler’s future vocation from Ninja to Farmer.

Little Hands on the Farm at the State Fair of Texas

Harvesting their crops

Do: Take a ride on the Top o’ Texas Tower. It’s that giant thing I’m sitting in front of in the first picture. It very slowly goes 500 feet into the air and again, very slowly rotates all around so you get magnificent views of Dallas and surrounding areas. The kids loved it. It was one of the few rides we could all go on together so I loved it too.

View from Top o' Texas ride

See the plane?

Maybe next year I will be able to take a picture of the Cotton Bowl Stadium filled with people? But then I’d have to go to the Fair on Game day and it will be insane. Maybe not then.

Cotton Bowl view

Empty Cotton Bowl

So it was a very different experience this year but still a lot of fun. I wish I could have seen the Starlight Parade that comes on at 7:15 pm but there was no way the kids would have lasted that long. They were nice and exhausted from a full day of fun.  I think I will get a season’s pass for next year because they keep asking me when we’re going to go back to the Fair!

Have you been to the State Fair with young kids? Any must-see attractions that I missed?

State Fair of Texas - With Kids

October 4, 2015 by: Nusrat

My First Blogging Conference – Blog Elevated 2015

Blog Elevated 2015

Recently I attended my first blog conference. Blog Elevated 2015 was in Dallas, TX this year so I had to represent.

This is my Miss America Pose

This is my Miss America Pose

Day 1

The Conference kicked off on Friday night with a Texas-style welcome reception. We wore cowboy boots and were served appetizers with an open bar of bluebonnet tequila-tinis and jalapeno margaritas. Great idea. If you want to gather a bunch of mostly introverted bloggers and have them actually talk to each other, definitely throw some liquor into the mix. Everyone had a great time introducing themselves, talking about their blog and exchanging business cards. There was a table set up with little cards for us to write about our best blogging moment this year. A few random cards were selected for prizes. It was a cute idea because we got to hear what other people’s best blogging moments were. This was my entry.

Having someone tell me that they really enjoyed reading my blog! And that it made them laugh! Yay!

Having someone tell me that they really enjoyed reading my blog! And that it made them laugh! Yay!

I posed with a giant plastic sunflower with new blogger friends Ashley and Keri.

This picture does not do justice to the amount of makeup I have on.

This picture does not do justice to the amount of makeup I have on.

What I learned:

  • I can walk into a room full of people I don’t know and start talking about myself. A big breakthrough for an introvert!
  • There were bloggers there that had been in the game for years and there were others that had just set up their blog. It was a lot less intimidating knowing that everyone is on their own blogging journey and is there to learn how to improve.

Day 2

Saturday morning started off bright and early at 9 am. Of course, my kids knew I had to be up early so they both decided to alternately wake up throughout the night. I was exhausted but managed to make it in time. Opening Keynote speaker was Rae Hoffman. Her speech hit me hard. Not only is she a phenomenal speaker but her story is amazing. Here I am chugging down my coffee feeling frustrated at not getting a solid night’s sleep. This was the kick in the butt I needed to wake up, stop the pity party and realize that I am a spoilt brat.

After the keynote speech, we broke out into groups to meet other bloggers within our niche. Meeting other bloggers was one of my favorite things about this whole conference. The rest of the day I attended a Brands to Blogger PR Panel, sessions on How to Choose a Correct Blogging Theme and Culture and Language in the Business of Blogging. I also got to hear fellow Aussie Jolie Egan talk about the #LikeAGirl campaign by Always. Lots of inspiring information!

I stuck around for the party in the evening called “Beauty, Bubbles & Bites.” I’m so used to attending little kid superhero themed birthday parties, I honestly thought that the ‘bubbles’ had something to do with the soapy bubbles you blow. It wasn’t. It was about champagne!

Champagne courtesy of Kroger

Champagne & Wine provided by Kroger

The Beauty part involved on-site manicures, makeup and hair stylists and obviously Bites was all about the food. My kind of party. Here I am hanging out with Kristy and Ginger.

Blog Elevated Conference 2015 Beauty Bubbles and Bites presented by Kroger

I have tall friends

What I learned

  • I should have brought a laptop! I type faster than I write and I could have been applying what I was learning to my blog throughout the day instead of making a list of things to do later.
  • Your situation does not determine your results. Your attitude does.
  • Tomorrow may not always come. Start Right Now.
  • Think of yourself as a business.
  • Know who your audience is.
  • Authenticity above all else.
  • Brioche is my new favorite cheese. (Sorry Pepperjack) Especially when it is stuffed into a mushroom I must have eaten like five of those things.

Day 3

Sunday morning I think everyone walked in exhausted. Thankfully we were quickly pulled out of that mood by Marie Bonaccorse  when she talked on Super Social Strategery. Marie has such a great presence and had hundreds of people cracking up laughing first thing in the morning.

After a quick break, I chose to attend the sessions on Transforming Your Instagram Account and Earning Links and Exposure for Bloggers. I think these two were my favorite because I learned so much. Instead of being overwhelmed I was excited.

Closing Session was by Lisa Stauber one of the founders of Blog Elevated Conference. It was so nice to meet her in person after tweeting and periscoping with her for months.

What I learned:

  • Have a social media crisis plan
  • Discipline yourself to be consistent
  • Use creativity in your captions, not your hashtags
  • Twitter Queries can help you find opportunities
  • Burnout is something we do to ourselves by not protecting our values and priorities.

So that’s it! An entire weekend full of information for you guys. I came out of this conference with so much knowledge and I’m so excited to apply everything I learned. Let me know what you think. Have you attended a blog conference before? Are you planning to?

Click through to get a recap of my first blogging conference & everything I learned.

Blog Elevated Dallas TX 2015

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