As I have mentioned several times, summer in an Alaska means *so* many festivals. I think you could probably find some sort of festival every week. Since mom was still in town for my Friday off this week, we decided to take the boys up to the Bear Paw Festival in Eagle River.
Henry saw the horse rides and was pretty insistent on riding a horsey. Thomas wanted nothing to do with the horses, which worked out well once I realized a few turns in a circle on the horse was $10. I went from trying to convince Thomas to join his brother to quickly deciding it was 100% cool if he didn't want to ride.
Lucky for Henry, I had already promised him a ride before I found out how pricey it was. Though he looks a bit concerned in this photo, he actually seemed to enjoy the ride overall. It certainly didn't hurt that Nonni was walking along with him telling him what a great horse rider he was!
And I forgot his sunglasses again. I am the worst at remembered his shades... :(
They had these giant Tundra comic panels for the kiddos to color. The coloring discs didn't really work all that well though, so the boys lost interest pretty quickly. When we went by at the end of the day we discovered that the discs were actually watercolor and they hadn't set up the brushes and buckets of water earlier in the day. No wonder it didn't work too well!
The boys had zero interest in the festivities apart from the carnival rides. What a surprise... And Henry is now big enough to ride some of the big boy rides. We were a little worried about how he would do once it started moving, so Nonni went along. Then Henry decided to sit in the front where no adult could possibly squeeze in. Thankfully, the ride was uneventful...!
Nonni was not that interested in the giant slide, so she offered to take photos of the boys and I on the ride down. I love the giant slide - I would imagine the boys will get tired of it before I will!
The "flying" ride was super popular today, so Thomas ended up having to share a helicopter. The little girl who had already claimed the helicopter wasn't at all bothered about sharing the front seat. He piloted his helicopter with his usual seriousness. Nonni thought it was hilarious that he was so focused and refused to make eye contact the whole time the ride was going (like usual!). It's not like I could have gotten a great photo of him even if he had looked at us - those windshields are so hazy & scratched up!
It was quite obvious he had fun on the ride though! This boy loves helicopter rides - we obviously named him well. :)
Henry was too little for the helicopters, so he decided to go on the carousel ride instead. Henry was obviously in a horsey mood today!
Once we blew through all of the ride tickets I bought, we headed over to the playground next to the rides to burn off a little more energy before heading home. I'm not sure who found these glass marbles to be more exciting me or Thomas. I thought they looked super cool with the sun flaring off of them!
They climbed and slid and ran around like crazy boys! I think I could have saved my money and just gone straight to the playground. I feel like this is a lesson I re-learn over and over... ;)
I finally pried the away from the playground with the promise of a funnel cake before we left. But it was so hot that I had to make them wait quite a while for it to cool down. You can see how happy they are about waiting to eat it. Ha - poor guys!
We even managed to find a guy making balloon animals on the way back to the parking lot. Henry was very excited about getting a bear in an airplane, but Thomas only wanted the airplane. The guy making the balloons tried to convince him to add an animal, but Thomas was insistent on only the airplane. Thankfully, Henry had more than an airplane, because he let his balloon touch the ground and it popped the back of his plane. But with the added bear, the rest of it managed to stay together. Whew!
Once we made it back to the car, these two were passed out before we even got back to the highway - the sign of a truly successful outing! :)