Frontier Days

Frontier Days was a few weeks ago and as usual, we had a pretty great time.  Mainly because Aunt Vicky and Uncle Matt live close enough to the Park that we can park in their driveway and then a few blocks to all of the fun.  It's amazing what a difference that makes to my level of enjoyment.  NOT having to drag two tired, sweaty, GRUMPY kids (and Glenn) 12 blocks back to the car or waiting in line for the shuttle bus makes me very happy.  This year, we had our usual afternoon at the carnival and then the next day we went to the parade and then Will and I went to the rodeo - a first for him.  More on that shortly. 

 

The carnival.  For a comparison shot, look at this picture from 2011 http://www.williamfrederick.blogspot.com/2011/08/frontier-days-2011.html.  (Side note - Where have all of the little Bronco Babies gone? They were so cute!  Now they are all long-legged and angular and even more opinionated.  Whimper.)

 

I posted this picture on my Facebook account with a lament about how that expression terrifies me for the future.  If that's not a "parttttttyyyyyyy!" face, I don't know what is.  And she's driving a pink, sparkly 4-wheeler.  Watch out, Sturgis.

On further reflection, the expression in the previous picture might be due in part to the giant bag of cotton candy that she ingested.  Even though this is most certainly not my first Frontier Days, I forgot that the ticket people couldn't take credit cards and so we had to wait for Glenn to show up with his wallet.  We killed time by eating cotton candy.  Because nothing's more fun than waiting for someone to show up, while you are trying to corral a bunch of hopped up kiddos worried about missing all of the fun and who have no time to listen to your reasoning as to why you don't have more cash in your pocket. 

Speaking of fun, Will finally graduated to the big kid rides this year.  You'd have to inject me full of opiates to even get me through the gate of this ride but there he is, all ready to go.  He had a big smile as he flew higher and higher in that little seat.  Brave big kid.  Later on, there was only one ride that he climbed into and then changed his mind before it started up and it was one that I was even more worried about then the Flying Swings of Mayhem (or whatever they are called) so I helped him shimmy off. 

"I'm not afraid of anything."  We think that's going to be Reina's first tattoo.  Thankfully her height prevented her from joining more rides but she scrambled through this fun house as many times as she could.  This spinning wheel/floor thing at the end had her a little panicked (not that she would admit it) but the nice carnival operator guy slowed it down so she could fling herself through. 

Let's not comment or linger on the fact that she looks so comfortable and happy clinging to that pole.  Let's just talk about what a natural she is horseback and how we need to get that cowgirl a pony.  Or a zebra.

The next day, we all trooped down to my office for our annual viewing of the parade.  Since we didn't have Grandma's house to entertain us beforehand, I had to take everyone with me and find things in my office to keep a 4 and 6-yr entertained for an hour and a half.  It looked like a bomb had gone off in there by the time we went outside for the parade. Once we got outside, we still had a few minutes to kill so I gave Reina my phone to take pictures in an attempt to keep her busy.  While this was happening, the wind blew up and Will got a boulder lodged in his eye.  Well, it felt like a boulder to him.

A birds-eye view of the parade outside of my office.  If the bird is approximately 36 inches tall and flightless.  There were about 10 other shots like this one except the proportion of her finger to actual picture gets larger and larger.  But hey, she was entertained. 

After the parade and the removal of the speck from Will's eye thanks to my awesome co-worker and her desk drawer full of eyedrops, Will and I headed to the rodeo.  Or 'the radio' as he kept referring to it.  You might be wondering how Reina took the whole change of plans and oddly enough, she didn't mind missing the rodeo because she got to go to the dentist!  Yeah, I don't think many people would view that as a fair trade-off but she does, and that's all that matters.

So back to the rodeo.  Glenn participated in a focus group a few months ago to give feedback on our annual Frontier Days celebration, which is ironic because as far as locals go, our participation is pretty light.  Every once in a while, we'll go to a concert and maybe one of the pancake breakfasts but we're usually laying low. But he received two free rodeo tickets as thanks for his participation so off we went.  Will was fairly entertained, even though this picture makes him look like he was asleep.  He was interested in the cowboys and the animals but his favorite part, unsurprisingly, was the snacks.  He started off with a sno-cone and a few bites of my candy apple, moved on to lemonade and then wrapped it all up with a big serving of nachos.  He eyed the ice cream cones on our way out but I wasn't too jazzed about sitting up all night with a queasy first grader so we passed. 

He was bored by one of the events to he proceeded to fill in all of the blanks of the program with random numbers and notes.  I remember thinking at the time, "he's a little tired today, I hope he's not coming down with something." 

Turns out, I'm psychic.  He missed most of this past week with a sinus infection/summer cold that moved into this chest and gave him one of those great seal barks that sound so healthy.  After a few days of medicine and lots and lots of couch time with his mom, he's feeling much better.  Just in time for Water World.