KidSpree

Here's something different: a blog post from Spencer. Back when my family was visiting from Lewiston, we went and saw Aurora's 4th of July fireworks. The grand finale was the best one I have ever seen. Click here for a video of them that someone posted on youtube. The finale starts at about 1:45 in that video, in case you want to skip right to it.

When I was looking online for info on the fireworks, I also found out about a free kid's festival that Aurora had today, and I took the kids to it while Mommy and Geewah were shopping.

There was lots of fun stuff for kids there. We spent about 5 hours there, and we didn't have time to do everything.

Some of the image links for the larger images are broken for some reason. Sorry about that. I'm having a hard time with pictures today. I brought the camera, but left it in the car. So, I just used my phone. The first thing we did was a life-sized Chutes and Ladders. They had a pathway of squares to follow, and some of them said to do things like touch their toes or spin like a top. Along the path, there were also 10 or so little slides.

After that, we came across a dog. CJ tells me his name is Harry.

The next giant board game was Hi-ho Cherry-O. They had chunks of swim noodles cut up that they put in the holes in the trees, and the girls picked them and put them in baskets.

One of the highlights was something they called the "Musical Petting Zoo." I was expecting animals and music; instead, the zoo was a collection of musical instruments that the kids could play with. They had volunteers there that were sterilizing the mouthpieces between kids.

I shot some videos of CJ and Avary playing music, and here they are:

After the music, there was a pile of PVC pipes and fittings to build things with.

These kites were pretty cool. They were all strung together in a group. They are stunt kites, so the guy flying them made Them swoop and dive all around.

The maze was fun. It was one of the things that CJ wanted to do when she first heard about this festival. I could see over the walls, so it was easy for me, but it was a good challenge for the girls.

CJ had so much fun the first time that she had to go right back through again.

I let them lead the way. At the dead ends, they had pictures of different landmarks. Here are CJ and Avary, posing at one of them.

Continuing with the board game theme, here's Candy Land.

I think this thing is the chocolate monster. He had a crank in front that would move his eyes.

At the exit, they had a tent with hundreds of swim noodles hanging down. The girls thought it was so much fun that they ran back and forth through it several times instead of just exiting. I had to stop them when they started running in to people.

There was a frisbee dog group that put on a show. We didn't stay to watch for too long, but they were fun to watch for a bit. The ones I saw dropped the frisbees a lot, but they also had some good tricks and some good catches.

They must have found a good deal on those swim noodles, because they were everywhere. They had a huge pile of them, along with some foam connectors so that you could build things with them.

CJ found out she could wear them, and Avary had to follow along. I had some fun here, too, and I built the ball the girls are playing with.

After that, CJ made a snake. She seems to have snakes on the brain since our visitor came along.

To go along with the guy in the dog costume, there was also a giant inflated cat.

Next up was a round of (very) miniature golf. CJ was so helpful, pointing to Avary where to hit the ball.


Another thing they had was a big pile of sand under a tent.

This one is called Wildly Beautiful. They had costumes to dress up like local plant and animal life. CJ is a snake, and Avary is some kind of grass.

I'm not sure if this one is a dinosaur or a dragon, but we called him a dragon. Avary was scared and hid behind me. When we were getting ready to leave, she was sad because she wanted to hug the dragon. I told her that it was gone, but we happened to see it again as we were walking out. Avary got scared again, and he turned around and acted sad. Then, Avary blew him a kiss and he blew one back.

This one is a Dress Up and Dancing station. Avary really wanted to go there, of course. They spent a lot of time there.

The last thing we did was go through the inflated castle maze. The girls are in there...somewhere...

Oh, there's CJ.

It took a while to finally get them out. In fact, the girl that was helping out there had to crawl in and tell them to get out and that their turn was over.

It was a fun day, and I'm glad we went. It looks like they do this every year, so we'll all need to head out again for it next year.