WCYF & Carnival

For whatever reason, we have never been able to make it out to the fair with Emmy.  I think it rained the first year, and we went to Austin last year since I had the day off.  This year, still reeling from the high that was Disney World, I decided that taking her was a must. 

Since we already had plans for the weekend and Friday (Austin again), I decided that Wednesday evening was our only option.  I happened to mention to Bradley on my way out there that I was taking her to the carnival and much to my surprise, he said that he wanted to join us.  My mom had already expressed interest in attending because the WYCF is a tradition she holds close to her heart.  So me and my merry band of followers family made our way out to the fair.

As soon as she saw the Carousel, she was sold on the place.



Since Daddy hadn't arrived yet, I was on ride duty.  We lucked out and our ride bands were buy one get one free. That was good since there is no  way that I would have paid that much money for each of us to have a ride band.





When Daddy arrived, she had eyes for only him.



So luckily, I didn't have to ride this death trap.  He enjoyed it and encouraged her to spin the balloon as quickly as she could.



This car looks pretty familiar...copyright infringement much??





Mom did not want to ride anything, so she was happy to take some photos of us having all of this family fun.







When Brad and I decided to ride a "big kid ride" she was not impressed by the train.



She bounces back quickly though.




When she screamed said that she wanted to ride the fun slide, my heart dropped.  I am not a huge fan of carnival rides, and this giant slide that they assemble twice a week does not rate high on my list of things to send my toddler down.  Bradley volunteered to take her down the slide, and he was halfway up the slide before I had a chance to voice any resistance.



They found a few familiar faces to slide with.



This hot young thing stayed on solid ground with me.  ;)





Emmy loved the fun house, and it was the only ride that was blaring Christian music.  I approved.





We met up with a few friends at our second ride on the carousel.





Bradley wanted to take her to the petting zoo.  To say that Emmy was not impressed would be an understatement.



With a little help from Mommy to keep the bigger animals away, she warmed up a little.





"Emmy had a little Lamb..."  JK



Her first fair tractor photo--at my mom's request.





Because she was such a trooper, Nana bought her cotton candy.



She sure does love refined sugar.



...and the lady that buys it!



I left the fair to go to church to buy our SeaWorld tickets, but Mom and Brad continued the fun.  She liked the Cars ride a lot more the second time.



I think we may have a little daredevil on her hands.  I wonder where she could have gotten that from... ;)



We had a great time, and we will definitely have to make this an annual tradition.  Events like this remind me how thankful I should be every day for the great community that we live in.  Just another day in Smalltown, Texas!

Family Funday at the Houston Zoo

My Aunt J won tickets to the Houston Zoo this spring.  She thought that she would take the kids to go see all the animals at some point this summer, but it just didn't work out.  So she decided to give her four tickets to us. We have wanted to take Emmy back to the Houston Zoo for a while, so it was perfect.

When I told Mom about the tickets, one of her coworkers gave her another four tickets that she had won.  We now had eight tickets, so we could invite friends for our free trip to the zoo!

So in the end our group consisted of: Bradley, Emmy, myself, Mom, Dad, Britt, Donald Ray, Susan, and Jackson!  We left El Campo mid-afternoon, so we could beat the crowds and the heat.

Before we made it into the zoo, Dad wanted to take the kids for a ride on the train.  Brad and I decided to stay behind with our stroller, so we walked over to a scenic part of the park and waited for them to come around the bend.



Emmy loved the train!  Everytime she heard it throughout the day, she would ask to go ride the "choo choo" again.

Once we got into the zoo, we of course had to get our drink and snack situation figured out.

We also took time to take a couple of group pictures.

We didn't plan out a specific route because it was already too late in the day to see any of the baths, feedings, or trainer talks.  We just walked around and stopped when we got to something we wanted to look at.



































































When we got to the edge of Africa, we saw the carousel.  I had forgotten that it was there, and we knew the kids (big and little) would enjoy it.  My mom didn't care to ride, so we made her the photographer of the ride.





















Emmy had so much fun.

Once we had finished riding the carousel, we were pretty much done with the zoo.  It was the perfect zoo trip.  It wasn't too crowded, the heat wasn't extreme, and there was plenty of room for the kids to run and play.  Thanks Aunt J for the tickets!!

We also went to Shoguns afterwards.  Dinner was excellent.


It was really just a lovely day with amazing people. :)