Friday Photo Story: Park Party

A local television personality sponsors "park parties" every summer for several Thursdays. I took the boys a couple of years ago and it was an absolute nightmare. You waited in line the entire two hours to go down a slide one time and once they even ran out of ice cream right before the kids got to the front of the line, after waiting quite a long time. It was a big disappointment and led me to declare that I would NEVER attend one again.


So we didn't go last year. Didn't even have the inclination.

I saw that there would be one this morning and decided that maybe we would give it a try this year. Thankfully, there have been many improvements made since last time. The kids got to do the things they most wanted to do. They were ready to go before it was over, due to the fact that it was in a direct sun parking lot and the temps hovered right around 90 degrees.

Here are some highlights:

The party started earlier than usual. A local company was sponsoring free lunches for the kids. The meal included a ham and cheese sandwich on wheat, banana, apple slices, sun chips and milk.















Aaron was excited to find a clown first thing. He LOVES clowns and has often said that he wants to be one when he grows up (although some people already he think he is, the goofball)















Then we headed to wait in lines for activities. The boys decided that they would first tackle the climbing wall.

Noah had tried before at the mall, but he made a it a little further than last time. Next time he claims he's going all the way to the top.
















Aaron was more nervous and the first time asked to be let down. Surprisingly, the guy let him try again and he started right up the wall. I didn't tell Noah this, but I think he went higher than his big brother did.

















And I even got a picture of the two of them at the same time.










They got to play a game where they spun a wheel and won a prize. Noah won a set plastic lips with a whistle in it. Believe it or not, it is not nearly as irritating of some of those noise toys.















After that,we headed over to load up on little bottles of water, and then it was time to ride a ride.

The line went pretty quickly for the spinner ride they went on. Noah thought he was hot stuff because he could put his hands up, and Aaron thought he was cool because he managed to take his hat off during the ride and toss it to me.








We then headed over to get small ice cream sandwiches We had heard that there were people spraying kids with big hoses to cool off and we intended to head over there after the next line.

While we were in line, the boys were trying to think of ways to keep cool. Aaron figured out that he could use the free frisbees they got as fans.

All was well until they started pelting each other with them. Such is the life of boys...













The next line happened to be where the kids could each pick out a free book. At that point, the boys (especially Noah) wanted to go home to cool off and look at their new books, so we never did get to the rest of the activities.









It was so much better of an experience than last time that I may even take them to another one later in the summer to do the activities they missed this time.

The weekend ahead:
There will be no Weekend Top Five next Monday. On Sunday after church, the boys and I will be headed off to Wisconsin to spend a few days with my friend Beth and her two boys. We'll be back on Wednesday next week, when I am quite sure I will have a ton of pictures to share.

Have a good weekend.