Carnival

I grew up always seeing the Steel Days festivities as we passed by them on the road. I had never actually been to them, but we drove past them on Saturday and we didn't have anything to do and our kids were begging to go and so we went. (For those who haven't gone... it's expensive and a bunch of "carnival folks" wandering everywhere). But I'm sure my kids will have good memories of the brief time we spent there. The kids had a good time and even though I only bought $10 worth of tickets, a nice lady handed me a bunch of tickets they weren't going to use... so they got to go on twice the amount of rides they normally would have.

Sam was desperate to try this ride. He kept on saying it was an "Up and Around Piano Ride" I do not like rides, I get sick easily and they aren't fun. So Michael took Sam. Kate wanted to go too, but didn't meet the height requirement and cried for the entire 30 seconds they were on the ride (It was probably meant to be a longer ride, and the poor riders who rode with them were gypped of a ride since Michael had them stop because Sam almost loses it. Seriously, I had to stop videoing because I was laughing so hard.) But right after I stop videoing Michael flags the operator and the ride abruptly stopped.

Now that you've watched the video... and focused on Michael having fun, until he notices Sam white knuckling the bar...

Watch it again and you will see a prime example of what I meant by "carnival folk" about 5 seats down from them. The guy with long flowing gray hair, a black cowboy hat, no teeth and no shirt. Here's a freeze frame of him (he was wildly waving the black cowboy hat the entire time).

Look at the poor little boy to the right of him.

Swimming Lessons

I don't have much to post. But it's been a while. These past 2 weeks it seems like we've spent swimming. I put Sam in swimming lessons, and we've stayed afterwards to swim so it seems like that's all we've been doing. Sam is doing great! It's been really good for him. He puts his head in the water and can swim for a couple of feet. He loves it.

Gardner Reunion

This past week we went up to the Gardner Family Reunion. We took some family pictures with our camera as we waited for the photographer to come... here's a few of the ones we took.

Here's Sam and his "best" cousin Jenna... they are really close and it really is amazing how well they get along, and have from a young age. I hope they always do. They are "kindred spirits."

Here are all of the Gardner grandkids. There are 10 grandkids under age 5 (one is not shown, I don't know where he is). We did lots of fun things, and hanging out, but I didn't take a lot of pictures. Hopefully we will get a copy of the other pictures that were taken.