Signs of a Good Day

I treated my family to a day at the Puyallup Fair yesterday...

Shane is awesome.  He totally posed by this sign for me.

 ...I don't even want to tell you how much it costs to take a family of nine to the fair, but the memories are priceless.

How many Downens does it take to milk a cow?

Lula loved the farm animals

 My plan was to check out the rides and decide whether to buy tickets or bracelets...and when I saw that each ride was between $4 and $6, I went the bracelet route for the four older kids and Mark!

Evie's first ride...She thought she was going to DIE

 The weather was sunny and HOT!

The baby was hot!

Lula was hot!

Daniel was hot!

All I needed to do was ride the Ferris wheel with the girls...

 ...and Daniel.  I haven't been to the fair for twenty years.  I've never been on a ride with my kids. 

Holding on to Daniel for dear life.

I didn't know how terrifying it would be to take Daniel on the Ferris wheel and watch him wiggle around and try to stand up.  One would think the Ferris wheel is the safest, tamest ride at the fair, but it had NO seat belts and was wide open.

I couldn't enjoy myself while Daniel was peeking through that opening with all the warning signs around it.  Children and riders with developmental limitations must be accompanied by a supervising person to ensure that the rider remains seated properly during the ride.   That is what that little white sign says.  The sign that is right above Daniel unseated head.  These Mama instincts are not suited for Ferris wheel riding.

Those are my other babies up there.  Upside down.

I also didn't enjoy watching my boys on the Kamikaze.  But they loved, loved, loved the rides.  They went on that one FOUR times.  Even Mark went on that one...

This is where I waited to meet my boys.  No one actually got lost, it was just shady here!

Before we left, I wrote my cell phone number on a piece of masking tape and placed it on the inside of the middle kids' shirts.  That way if they got lost, they could ask someone to call me.  I coached them to ask a mom with kids first, a lady second, and a fair employee at the ticket booth third. 

Lula loved the bubbles.

Lula was a trooper.  She went on zero rides, unless you count sitting in a sweaty stroller in the blazing sun a ride.  I left Mark in charge of Heidi and Lula (and the stroller) while I took Evie, Fiona, and Daniel on the carousel.  While we were waiting for the ride to start, I watched Mark try to talk on his phone (he was kinda working), bottle feed Heidi, and watch Lula.  But while he was looking down at Heidi, Lula saw us and took off running toward us.  Mark wouldn't have been able to hear me calling him, so I tried to sign to Lula to stop, go, and Dad.  Luckily Mark looked up before Lula gate crashed the ride...and he had to make that choice of leaving the baby in the stroller to rescue Lula or stay with the baby and let Lula gate crash...

Mark and Evie...but you can't see Evie

Evie was too old for the kiddy rides and a little too short for the fun rides, but she was just right to ride the Wild Cat roller coaster with her dad.  The Wild Cat has been there my entire life.  I hope they maintain it.  I was worried that Evie would get motion sick...

"That was AWESOME!!"

Although Evie was too old for the kiddy rides, she enjoyed them and was a great help with getting seat belts on herself, Fiona, and Daniel.

We were wondering why the sign at the top of the slide was facing out....

Helicopter ride

Car ride

By the time we got to this part of the day, we were roasting.  Ian and Shane had gone off with a friend from scouts and Mark and I were getting tired.  Lucky for us, we got a call from the friend letting us know that the boys were finally hot, tired, hungry, and thirsty enough to take a break.  We got our boys and hit one more ride on our way out...

The haunted house...is it too scary for Fiona?

We needn't worry!  It's just as corny as it was 20 years ago.

Shane (maroon shirt), Evie, Ian, Mark (pushing the stroller), and Daniel running up behind, ready for Dairy Queen

We really did "Have a Great Day."  I'm thankful we don't do things like this very often.  When we do, the memories last.  But next time? I'm going on a cool day.  And leaving the stroller babies at home.