The pros and cons of going to the Ex

Army display:

Pros - hmmmm...thinking hard here...colour coordination? Seeing the inside of a helicopter? Marching band? Seeing Julio light up as he approached a torpedo?
Cons - seeing teenagers looking far too enthused about huge weapons. I don't think Julio would call that a con, for the record. But I can't help myself, I just do.

This is Luke in the helicopter simulator. He could've cared less. It didn't look very helicopterish without the big propellers, who could blame him? The boy beside him was super enthused though.
The rides:
Pros - Luke could do many of them already and loved it. Another big pro is that these rides are about my speed. I've become rather chicken in the last few years and by the grin on my face on the "roller coaster" picture, this is about as much roller coaster as I can handle. Another pro was bumping into church friends so Luke could go on a few rides with them. Although in the helicopter one I think he just looked wistfully at the steering wheels the whole time. On any ride with a steering wheel, of which he had control, I truly believe he thought he needed to steer, and looked pretty serious about it.
Cons - not many. Maybe price. I'm not sure if Luke got $4 a ride enjoyment out of each but apparently my $4 were well spent (see photo below) so I don't know if that counts as a con.


The petting zoo:
Pros - lots of animals, room for kids to roam right were the animals were, cute piglet and goats in a basket, according to Luke. I didn't enter into the hands on area because it was a stroller free zone, but Luke kept talking about the goats in a basket afterwards, so it must have been a highlight.
Cons - sleeping lemurs, signs that say "only a loonie" for feeding the animals (didn't it used to be a quarter?!?), hmmm...that's about all I can think of. (I wasn't totally hung up on the expense, for the record, I just have to think of some cons, to be good and negative I guess.)
The farming area:
Pros - interesting and educational, getting to watch a cow getting milked (that may also fall under con, explanation to follow), seeing a baby chick hatch before my eyes!, seeing laying hens lay eggs according to their colour (apparently white hens lay white eggs and brown hens lay brown eggs, who knew? Not this city girl apparently...), watching Luke take it all in
Cons - identifying in a very serious way with farm animals. Let's start with the cow. The farmer milking the cow did a lovely, if not overly thorough, job of explaining the milking process, from stimulating the utters to get a let down, talking about oxitocin, watching the utters fill up and then drain after being milked...asa a nursing mother let's just say it all hit so close to home and watching him constantly touching the utters was a little weird. (He wasn't a sicko or anything for the record, I'm just a city girl). Now let's move on to the sow. She was in a tiny little pen with all her little piglets and all of a sudden one piglet started squealing and suckling, and before you knew it all twelve or so of them were at it. Talk about survival of the fittest, what an aggressive bunch! And momma sow just lay there grunting, resigning herself to her duty as a sow mother. I'm sure the males in my family did not have the same experience there as I did.
Food:
Pros - I think Julio was happy with the mini donuts and hot dog, as I was with my cotton candy. I don't remember it being quite THAT sweet but it's been a while.
Cons - being hungry for some "real" food and only being able to eat fries (again, this seems to happen to me a lot). And then finding out that they were just a frozen bag from Superstore. For $4. Not that i'm dwelling on the money...

Samuel at the Ex:
Pros - he's cute no matter where we take him and he was mostly happy as long as the food kept coming. We packed a ton of fruit and cheese and what not and kept throwing it on his stroller tray.
Cons - well...just look at this picture. What a mess. The picture doesn't do the reality justice.

Weather:
Pros - the weather started out being hot and sunny and beautiful, and we got there around 3:30 so had lots of time to enjoy the warm weather. As the day progressed though, it got more and more overcast and did rain a little. But nothing too severe and we made it home in time for good bed times for all of us, a HUGE pro in my books.

Cons - crazy winds, people running like it's the end of the world, seeing sand swirl a few hundred yards away (I have no concept of distance, that just sounds good), not knowing where to go ourselves, whether to run and hide or wait it out. The wind died down pretty quick so Julio and Luke quickly hopped on the last ride of the night before it started raining while Sammy and I hovered in fear as the winds picked up again.

All in all, much fun, we'll do it again for sure!