Festival Festivities!!!

Ahhh... festivals.

The magical places where $100 can disappear from your hands in a manner of minutes... the land of $5 lemonades, $6 corndogs and $20 carnival rides...

Nothing says summer like a rip-off... I mean, a festival... right??

I'm kidding about the rip-off...

Kinda...

Either way, last weekend was the annual Festival of Balloons (as in the hot air variety) and Neal had to go on Sunday and help his friend Cheyenne with his National Cornhole League, which had a space at the festival.

So we figured we'd all go and make a day of it.

Unfortunately, the balloons launch early on Sunday morning in a "good-bye" ceremony so we totally missed seeing any and all hot air balloons... which is part of the whole point of the festival... darn.

Austin, naturally had the best time!!

He checked out the fire truck and got to climb up in it and pretend to drive..

He also enjoyed showing the fireman his scab on his knee and getting some sympathy.

*cough, attention whore, cough*

Apparently I was the same with "wounds" and had to show everyone and their mother and reveled in the sympathy. The apple doesn't fall far...

Austin also played a fishing game and won a blow up alien he named Gloopy (from an alien character on his Umi Zoomi show)

Gloopy now is a member of the family. He protects the house while we are gone during the day, he gets invited to dinner, offered bites of food and drinks of milk, and nonnies at bedtime.

Welcome, Gloopy.

Austin also made a toy sailboat that he got to paint!

Ok, honestly... I whipped out my mad carpentry skills and hammered that bad boy together while my kid played with the safety goggles in the booth. Those nails are in there good too, if I do say so myself. Daddy didn't raise no fool when it comes to hand tools!

He painted his boat green and yellow. And for the record, he picked those Duck colors out all by HIM-SAY-ELF... quack!!

Then we saw some Storm Troopers and I..... uh... I mean, Austin... wanted to track them down!!! He wasn't too sure about them, and has never seen Star Wars, so I told him they were like policemen from outer space.

He did manage to give them a fist bump while I geeked out.

They were fabulous posers.

We had to ride a few carnival rides while we were there.. I mean, when in Rome, right??

Daddy was the lucky companion for Austin's first roller coaster ride!!

We think he had fun. Maybe. Not sure... but he didn't hate it, according to Neal.

But he did love the firetruck ride that went way high up in the air!!

We left the festival with a very tired little toddler, a new alien friend, and a lighter wallet. Hey, less weight to drag around, right??

And, I might add... the $6 corndog was delightful and worth every cent!