The Festibul

A couple of weeks ago we checked out the St Max Family Festival at our local catholic church. We've attended service there a couple of times and Michael even volunteered to help out and worked a couple of hours on Saturday. Friday night, though, we decided to drive on over and have a family date night.

Last year we took Adam to the Lexington fair and, frankly, he was less than thrilled to be there. If you remember the story, as we were parking he told us he wanted to stay in the car. A year later I feared he'd have the same reaction.

He seemed excited to go to the "festibul" this time, and after parking we walked over and entered by the kiddie rides. There was a sack slide, a jungle jim/funhouse thing and some rockets that circled and raised and lowered.

Adam said he wanted to ride so I purchased a few tickets not knowing how this was going to go over. He chose the jungle jim contraption with a tunnel to crawl through, obstacle course, a rope ladder, suspension bridge and two slides. I think I was more excited than he was that he was willingly climbing up on his own! He zipped through the lower portion, ascended a ladder up to a platform, saw the inflatable tube slide and, well, stopped to admire the view for the next 10 minutes. We could see him debate the merits of sliding or climbing back down as other children climbed over and around him to continue on. We were those parents standing on the ground trying to yell up to him over the carnival noises to encourage him on but it finally took the kid who was manning the ride to go up and assist him.

Once he conquered the ride once, he was anxious to try it again. On his second attempt, he only hesitated 7 minutes on his platform before another, helpful child helped him forward. As he came down the slide we could hear a triumphant "I did it!" From then on, his fears were conquered.

He zipped down the sack slide all on his own and immediately wanted another go at it. When it came to the rocket ride, though, I had my doubts that he'd go on it alone. This kid has never been fond of machines and doesn't even want to sit on a stationary lawnmower with the engine off. {He dislikes the vacuum, too, so of course I refrain from upsetting my child as much as possible.}

But there was no hesitation at all! In fact, we had to go buy more tickets so he could ride it a couple of times. Meanwhile Michael and I enjoyed the kind, easy conversations with other parents and the overall feeling of belonging to a community.

Like I mentioned, Michael had volunteered on Saturday afternoon, so of course we had to return then to ride a few more rides. And for this.

And this.

And of course, this.

Fair food. Enough said. 

Would you believe this is Adam's first full ice cream cone? Yes, he has finally come around on liking ice cream and desserts in general! Yay!

{And what does it say about me that I made the food pictures larger than the others??!}

All in all these two days at the "Festibul" were good practice for our upcoming vacation and the Carolina Beach boardwalk rides with his cousin Jake.

So, you think he's excited to go to another Festibul?

And Sam can't contain his excitement either.