Our city holds a festival/carnival/street vendor fair called "Downtown Days...Streets Alive!" every summer. The name changed just a few years ago - it was formerly known as Old Tyme Days. I may have convinced my friend Laura to enter a Civil War costume contest with me during the festival back in 2004 (she won - but that's a story for another day)! I've tried to attend the festival at least every few years since then. Now that we have kids, it is a great way to get out of the house for a few hours! If you can resist the rides and games and food, it's even a free adventure.
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| City Hall |
So even though our day had been tiring, we drove downtown to hit the festival. I sneaked in a little bit of thrifting and picked up some new additions for my costume collection. Lincoln was unimpressed with shopping and wanted to get on with the fun.
We didn't have much of a plan and just spent an hour or two wandering through the streets, perusing vendor booths (like Ella Jane Crafts - which I had liked on Facebook long ago; had no idea they were local), getting a photo-booth style photo strip taken (love), and sampling root beer and roasted nuts. Lincoln spun the prize wheel at the Summit Theatre Group booth and won us a free water bottle (then threw a colossal tantrum when we made him get back in the stroller - awesome).
We couldn't resist some cinnamon-roasted pecans. Seriously, amazing. And if you've known me any length of time, you will find it miraculous that yes, I voluntarily spent money on nuts to consume myself. I spent many years refusing nuts in any capacity.
Addie rode around in the Ergo and didn't seem to care about much that was going on. She'll probably be a little more interested next summer.
In the spirit of our summer of family fun, we decided to buy tickets for Lincoln to go on a carnival ride. At $3 a ride, the carnival is not something we'll be able to fully experience every year - but at least Lincoln still wasn't old enough to ask for more rides this year. I'm sure next time it may be a different story. There was a ride with cars and jeeps and trucks that we thought he would love, but after we bought tickets, we found out that parents couldn't ride. Lincoln's not mature enough to go buy himself yet, so instead we all hopped on the carousel (where parents ride free).
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| Family Carousel Selfie |
Both kids seemed to get a big kick out of it - although Addie was pretty squirmy and I was a little bit terrified of dropping her while the carousel spun. We all survived and had no major fits when the ride was done. Success!
By the time we left the carnival, we were all definitely adventured out. It was kind of a crazy day after a week of very little activity due to Lincoln's burns. I tried to get Andrew to take a photo of me and the kids as we headed back to our car - not our best attempt ever.
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| Mom + Kids Photo Fail |
Even though we were exhausted, I was glad we made the effort to go. I love the Downtown Days festival! Next year, maybe Lincoln will be old enough for his own ice cream cone or funnel cake! Our summer bucket list is on the way to being a huge success - yay!
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| Come see how much progress we have made on our list! |
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