4th of July Eve

Sophie & Greg, Owen & Cousin Jared

Sophie wanted to use her carnival ticket on this climbing structure. We warned her that if she got scared at the top we wouldn't be able to help her. We pointed to the lovely carousel and tried to lure her away, but she would have none of it. So, up the climby thing she went. Owen wanted to go too, but we knew he'd wimp out for sure.

She made it to the first bridge with no trouble.
Though there was a little wobble about half way.

About 5 minutes and a lot of cajoling and tears later, the slightly creepy carnival worker had to help her get across the final bridge.

Here she is after sliding down the giant slide at the end, yelling, "I want to do that again!" I'm not kidding. And she ended up doing it at least two more times that weekend. Oh well. Grandma bought the tickets.

The lovely carousel turned out to be my scariest (and only) ride. That thing was a death trap, man!

Owen's first solo ride. He was very stoic.

But he was ready to do more rides.

Cousin Jared used some of his tickets to do rides with the kids (what a good sport!). Here they are on the Dizzy Dragon. About 30 seconds later, Owen was in Jared's lap for the rest of the ride.

Greg offered to go on a "big kid ride" with Jared since he'd been so good about riding with our kids (what a good sport!). Too bad Jared picked "The Scrambler."

We're getting too old for this kind of thing.

Grandpa getting ready to set off his "Circle Works" fireworks extravaganza in their street.