Delaware State Fair & Brad Paisley concert

This year was the 90th anniversary of the Delaware State Fair.  Never in either of our lives has Brian or I attended before. It's held in Harrington, which is relatively south in Delaware and very much part of the agricultural area of Delaware.  Each year they pull in big name acts for concerts.  When I heard that Brad Paisley was one, I knew I wanted to get tickets.  Brad Paisley is one of my favorite country musicians (and besides Taylor Swift or the Dixie Chicks, the only one I think Brian would consider going to see!).  We bought tickets back in March and his concert has been one of the things of the summer I was most looking forward to doing.

You have to attend the Fair to gain access to the Grand Stand.  Brian's parents watched Addie and Ben from Sunday morning through this morning so we could attend as adults. 

It's really an interesting place to visit.  It's very family friendly, and it's dry, which I had no idea about.  There are plenty of 4H club competitions throughout the day; lots of exhibits of things I never cared about; and tons of carnival rides. 

Here's a snapshot of what we saw:

These cows were ENORMOUS.  They are waaaay bigger than Brian or I imagined.  This one licked Brian's shoulder as we were taking pictures!
Here's a little calf nursing from its mother.  
There were HUGE pigs. And these two made me smile, since they're holding hooves.
We got to observe sheep shearing. They wear these coats once they're freshly sheared. I thought Addie would get a kick out of this.
Now this is my kind of pig!  He was so cute.  
And then there were the baby chicks.  
This was the largest slide we've ever seen.  They had the kiddie one further over, which looked lame compared to this monster.
This is the view from our seats.  It is an outside grandstand.  There was severe thunderstorm about an hour before the concert started and I thought for sure we were going to get soaked.  Maybe three drops of rain fell during the show, which was great. We were 19 rows from the stage.  There were 3 off-shoots of the stage, so each act probably came out to about the 10th row or so, so we were close.  Opening act was Jimmy Wayne (who I couldn't recall any songs he sang, but once he opened I knew some).  Then Dierks Bentley sang (again, who I didn't know from the name, but then I knew all of his songs).
Here's Brad Paisley.  Not only can he s.i.n.g. but he can PLAY a guitar.  He performed for 2 hours, probably playing 25-30 songs, and switching 10 guitars out.  He is really talented.
He was right there.  He sang every song I wanted to hear except for one (He Didn't Have To Be, which was the song I danced to Guppy with at our wedding).