at the carnival

Danny has been talking a lot about the carnival lately. He gets paper and cuts little pieces to use as tickets. He draws things on paper that are supposed to resemble things found at a carnival. So last weekend we took him to the carnival.

He was excited. As soon as he got out of the truck, he stood in this ditch and told me to take his picture. So I did. I love that my little boy recognizes a good photo op when he sees one.


Cate wanted to ride the "horsies" so the first ride we went on was the carousel. She wasn't so sure about it after she actually got on one. It seemed to take forever to get it loaded up with people. I was afraid she was going to change her mind. Check out Danny's face. Maybe he wasn't so sure about it either.

I love his face in this one...


and in this one too.


Cate warmed up to it once the horses started moving up and down. I'm not so sure about Danny. Sorry about the blur. That's the kind of pictures you get when you don't have a fancy schmancy camera that is big enough to warrant some kind of neck strap, a camera bag and lenses that actually come on and off (instead of one lens that still can't zoom properly because there's sand in it from the banks of the Green River).


Danny rode the flying saucers all by himself. I was a tad bit freaked out by it since that "seat belt" looks like it wasn't prepared to hold anything in, much less a three-year-old who is perfectly capable of standing up while the saucer was off the ground. I let him go anyway. If I thought that thing would have held me (and been able to lift off the ground while holding me) I would have gotten in with him.


He had fun. The kid who sat beside him looked a little bit ticked off that he had to ride with someone else.

Then there was the roller coaster shaped like a caterpillar. Danny rode that while I rode the carousel with Cate again. I had the camera in my bag. I really wish I had given it to Dan sooner. From where I was on the carousel, I could see Danny every so often. He was in the very last seat. Sometimes that's the bumpiest seat on a roller coaster. I think that held true for the caterpillar. The looks on his face were priceless. He didn't crack a smile. He just held on and let that thing whip him around and up and down.

Here he is at the very end when it was slowing down.


And then a nice little wave and a fake smile when it had come to a complete stop. I'm thinking we should have saved the caterpillar for the last ride. It kind of ruined him for the rest of our stay at the carnival. He said the roller coaster was not fun. He was not excited to ride anything else after it. We'll keep trying though. That kid is going to be riding Goliath, Ghostrider and Superman with me someday whether he likes it or not.


I made Dan shove his body into the train to take a ride with Cate. He looks excited, right? He certainly was. Cate's hiding on the other side of him.


She loved it. Looks like Dan did too (eventually).


I made Danny ride the train too. He was not happy about it. After that, we left the carnival and headed for home. We stopped and got the kids ice cream cones at Sonic. It's pretty blurry but those cones were ginormous. Cate did a good job of getting more ice cream on her face than in it.


See, we really do get out of the house and do fun things together as a family once in a while.


p.s. It was brought to my attention recently that writing about puke, boogers and poop is graphic. Sorry about that. Hopefully these carnival highlights are more acceptable. At least all I did was write about puke, boogers and poop. I could have posted the picture of Cate that I took right after she sneezed and ended up with a big booger bubble on her upper lip. Now that's graphic.