Fun at the Kids' Fair

At the end of last month, a local shopping area (U. Village, for you locals) hosted a kids' fair, and we decided to check it out with a few of our friends to see what it had to offer.

We convened at the covered play area and burned off some energy as we waited for the two other families to arrive. It didn't take long to realize that our kids probably aren't going to fit in the play area much longer. They hardly fit in the play cars and Annika could scale the climbing structure in 3 steps. (Wahhh!! Our babies are growing up!!!!)

After finding everyone, we headed over to the fair, where there were a variety of vendor booths, as well as a fire truck, police car, and performance stage. The kids were highly impressed with the fire truck and all its splendor. Conor was less impressed once it was his turn to talk with the firefighters and climb into the rig, though; he left that to Annika. Unlike her little brother, Annika had no qualms about climbing into the fire truck and poking around a bit.

After peeking in a few booths, everyone agreed it was time for lunch. Fortunately, we picked a close restaurant that didn't have a lunch rush yet... considering we had 5 adults and 6 kids, we needed a decent amount of space. Our lunch was tasty, but loud and chaotic (go figure!).

We'd promised the kids they could have balloons before we left for their swim lessons. They REALLY wanted to go to the balloon animal guy's booth, so we waited in an insanely long line and anxiously kept an eye on the time and how slow the line was. (I think Eric was about to break out in hives due to the slow line ... he hates cutting things close when it comes to time and we were definitely cutting things close.) As a distractor, Annika and I jumped out of the balloon line  and hopped over to the hair booth so Annika could get her hair braided. The gal was amazingly fast and even sprinkled some glitter on Annika's hair to make it extra fancy! Fortunately, we reached the front of the balloon line JUST in time. Annika requested a heart wand; Conor asked for a flower wand. Both kids got exactly what they wanted! Eric and I were highly impressed with how fast the balloon guy worked and how versatile his designs were!

AND, we made it to swim lessons just in the nick of time.

Conor in the play area

Our climbing champ

Checking out the fire hose

Firefighter Annika to the rescue

Teeny tiny kids .... HUGE fire truck