Summer solstice is a big deal around here. It makes sense that when you refer to yourself as "the land of the midnight sun", the longest day of the year is a big deal. And I know that technically the actual day is tomorrow, but it makes more sense to have a festival about it on Saturday. Coincidentally, my sister's birthday is also tomorrow and while she has backed off of having a "birthday month", she was pretty keen on having a fulfilling "birthday weekend". Since she seems to like hanging out with us so much, we decided to all go have some solstice fun!
I usually try to post the photos in chronological order, but I'm breaking tradition and posting the absolute last photo first. Only because it is my favorite! I rarely get any with me and my boys, but Heather was happy to take it and they even look happy to be hanging out with their momma. Henry is happy (trust me!).
Back to the correct order!
We were trying to get to the food first. We had a late breakfast, so we were running super late on lunch. Unfortunately, the path to the food went right past the skateboarding area. And Thomas loves watching skateboarders! I decided that we could chill there until Aunt Heather caught up with us.
Henry as not as impressed with the skateboarders. I know his expressions can be confusing to the untrained eye. This one is pretty much how it appears.
Thomas was super into it. Though he did ask me "Why do they keep falling?" after watching for a few minutes. They weren't very good - that was the truth of it. But they were having fun and being entertaining, so he didn't seem to mind too much.
We finally got to the food! It wasn't state fair quality, but when you are starving everything tastes great. All Thomas wanted was a cupcake - mostly because we had to walk by three cupcake trucks on the way to the BBQ truck. Heather had already eaten, so I even had tons of help feeding two wiggly little man - perfect!
We finally made it to the kids area. They had a pretty cool obstacle course set up for the little kids to run / crawl through. Thomas did not need any convincing to get started. I followed along with him and gave him a high five when he got through it.
I was a little surprised when he ran back to the start of the course without me. He's getting more and more independent these days. It makes me proud when he's such a big boy. :)
Look at this guy. He's growing up waaaaaay too fast, right??
Still absolutely adorable.
Not biased at all.
Henry was getting pretty tired of watching from the sidelines... So we decided to let him run free in the kid area. I figured he might like the bubble tower or just wandering around.
But shockingly, Henry was just as excited about the obstacle course as Thomas was. He was a champ!
Then he decided that destroying the obstacle course was just as much fun as trying to complete it. It hard to be stern about putting the cones back when he's giggling so much after stealing them. :)
Back to the crawling! He did not observe the line of kids and kinda cut in front of someone. Luckily that little girl was pretty understanding...!
The first few times, Thomas ran past these balance bumps, but after a few goes through the course, he was taking it pretty serious. Some of them were too far apart, but he did what he could! It was compounded in difficultly by all the babies and toddlers trying to destroy the course. Who would do such a thing?!? ;)
Look at this guy - so proud of himself!
Heather and I spent most of the time switching off who was watching which kid. She was pretty tolerant of me trying to get cute photos of the kids. Even though the kids were certainly not cooperating with trying to get cute photos of them with their Aunt Heather.
Henry even took a go at the balance bumps. And by that I mean, Aunt Heather tried to get him to use them and he didn't fight her on it. Ha!
The last part of the obstacle course was a line of cones to zig zag through. Thomas was all about the maneuvering, but Henry just ran along the side. Whatever makes them happy!
The end of the kid area was filled with all kinds of things that required payment to play. Luckily the only one Thomas had eyes for was the run through inflatable at the end and it was only $1. Score!
Unfortunately, the line was super long. I told Thomas we could stand in the line or we could go get a cupcake. (Maybe I didn't want to stand in the line - so sue me!) Amazingly, he chose the line, not the cupcake! What??
Which doesn't mean he loved waiting the whole time, but he hung in there!
We finally got to the start and I got his shoes off. We opted to take the socks off too so he would have traction. (Which just happened to be Minion socks that matched his shirt...) But right before he jumped in they told me he had to take his glasses off. I wasn't sure how he would react to that and the fact I wasn't going in with him.
He was a champ! He took off down the course and we followed along on the outside - thankfully mesh so I could get photos of him rocking it. :)
He got hung up on one section where he was supposed to push through, but he wasn't quite strong enough. Luckily, he could crawl under it and made it through. The only thing left was the big slide at the end. I'll admit I was a little worried - it wasn't that long ago that a big slide really freaked him out.
I worried for no reason! He got up the slide and rocketed down like it was no big deal. I was lucky to even get a photo of him!
Of course, when I got home and saw the photo full size, I almost died laughing at the expression on his face. So maybe he was still a little scared of the big slide, but he went down it anyways. Yay for my brave Thomas!
We headed back toward the food area to get our cupcakes, but there was more fun stuff along the way. Henry was super excited running around the sidewalk chalk drawings. I tried to get both of them to draw, but Thomas made one scratch and ran off to the next fun zone.
Which was the giant sandbox! Henry played from the sidelines, but Thomas was all in before I could catch up to him. As much fun as they were having, I think we need to get working on the backyard sandbox sooner rather than later!
Finally made it to the cupcakes! Thomas graciously decided that we could share a cupcake - which is a pretty rare occurrence these days. He picked his out by the cherry on top, so I let him have the cherry all to himself. Not a big sacrifice on my part, I'm not a huge fan of maraschino cherries. Or the cupcake at all to be honest - way too sweet for my liking! He gobbled his half up pretty darn quick though, so he obviously didn't mind. Don't worry - Henry wasn't left out, he got a cookie all to himself!
Minus the less than exciting food, it was a great time. Alaska, you do a pretty good job of celebrating the solstice. Glad we could celebrate with you! :)