Festival Days

Yesterday was our hometown "Festival Days". We started with the parade which I LOVE. It goes down our beautiful tree-lined Main Street so we always have shade which makes the experience so much nicer. Some neighborhood friends and my sister and BIL (he rode his bike for quite a distance and met Liza and the kids there, impressive!) and their kids joined us. There were actually some amazing floats and I always love marching bands, plus two of my cute cousins were in it.

Ben not letting Brennan unplug his ears during the sirens.

gearing up for some serious candy

Anna and Belle

Abby taking Josh's bike for a spin

After the parade we went with our friends to the carnival. I always think that will be so much fun. In some ways it is, both girls climbed the climbing wall thing which was cool and Abby really wanted to be in the dunking machine which was fun, oh and we got a new tiny pet frog (which not sure if that's a good thing yet), but basically it's just really hot and exhausting to try and herd really distracted kids through crowds of people. The kids beg to spend every cent we ever made on really dumb things. Brennan and I came home kind of ornery, okay I was really ornery - hot, tired, keeping track of 4 kids going in 4 different directions in a crowd - not a good combo.

Ready...

Splash..

wet!

Anna scrambled up the wall in no time at all.
Abby did great.

However, the kids enjoyed themselves and after the carnival we went to lunch with our friends which was nice (except for the fact that Brennan got one medium drink for 6 people and Ben was lording over it mercilessly and the other kids were not amused) til Abby came within inches of getting hit by a car as she headed back to the car to check on their new frog.

All in all it really was good family fun. The parade was definitely the highlight.