At the Civic Center, children were offered two free activities: balloon art and face painting. Mandana Moshrefzadeh, a certified balloon artist, created a menagerie of balloon animals and tools for the children. After the children completed their balloon creation, they lined up for face painting. Carrie Goettlicher and her daughter Marti Goettlicher of Making Faces Mankato painted a variety of amazing images on the faces of hundreds of children.

Six-year-old Abigail Achman had her face painted to look like a rainbow-colored unicorn. The face paint was accompanied by a special plastic unicorn horn to complete the look.

Achman said she loves unicorns and looks forward to face painting all day. Her four-year-old sister, Isabell Achman, chose a mermaid-themed face painting design.

Face painter Carrie Goettlicher recently said that mermaid makeup was the most requested, but the unicorn was her most important subject throughout her 12-year career.

Nicollet Public School’s Latchkey Child Care Center visited the Brown County Fair on Friday morning. Many of the children participated in the Kid’s Dance Party hosted by Up All Night DJ. The first requested song of the dance party was “Macerena

“The unicorn never dies”, she said.

Nine-year-old Harley Deree chose to have his face painted with the green dragon before picking up a turtle balloon from Moshrefzadeh.

Deree couldn’t decide if her favorite part of the fair was the balloons or the face painting. She was excited to try the rides, “especially the yo-yo swings.”

UP All Night DJ Andy Christensen hosted a special children’s dance party at the Civic Center. Christensen said the dance party got off to a good start, with several daycare centers attending the show. He said he had planned to play a lot of music from Disney movies, but the children responded to a wide range of songs. The first song request of the day came from 8-year-old Addison Plath, who joined the “Macarena.” Christensen was more than happy to play a dance song from the 90s and show the kids the dance.

Later in the day, the Dock Dogs competitions began. The competition involves dozens of dogs competing in a variety of water activities, including long jump, speed retrieve and high jump.

Border Collie/Whippet mix named Rehab clears 25 feet on his first jump at Dock Dogs.

Kailey Smith, president of the Dock Dog North Star chapter, said at least 30 dogs were registered for the competition, which lasted the weekend.

The Dock Dogs competition began with long jump. Each dog and its handler had to run 36 feet and jump into a pool of water. Each dog had two chances to jump.

One of the early stars of the competition was a two-year-old Border Collie/Whippet mix named Rehab, whose first jump of the day was 25 feet, 6 inches. Rehab’s second jump was over 29 feet. The distance record for the Dock Dogs chapter was 32 feet.

Rehab’s owner, Luke Wiechman of Maplewood, Minnesota, said Rehab only started competing a year ago.

“He didn’t like the water at first, but then he suddenly realized it was a game,” said Wiechmann. “Now he loves it.”

He said the secret to Rehab’s success was that he had the speed of a whippet and the intelligence of a border collie.

Dock Dogs hosts a “Try it out” Event from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Dog owners who want to test whether their pet can compete in the Dock Dogs competition can do so at the dock.

The Dock Dog competitions will continue through Sunday, with the long jump final taking place on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.