Strawberry Days Carnival

Strawberry Days started this week. It is a pretty big deal for the city of Pleasant Grove. They have contests, concerts, parades and a rodeo. There is even a carnival with rides and booths in the middle of town. As we drove by this week I could see my boys' eyes get big and full of excitement.

The whole atmosphere reminded me of my childhood growing up in Wyoming. Every summer we waited and waited for the county fair. It was so fun to go on the rides, see who got suckered into playing the carnival games, and check out all the food booths.

Can't you just smell the popcorn and cotton candy?

As soon as they saw the carnival, my boys begged me to go on the rides. They were so excited that I just couldn't say no.

So Wednesday night when the carnival started I drove down and picked up my set number of tickets. That way when we went the next day I would only have so many tickets for the boys to use.

It also gave me a chance to take some fun pictures while the carnival wasn't crowded (and while I wasn't herding around two excited little boys!).

So Thursday we went to the carnival after story time at the library. I even managed to turn our adventure into a lesson of sorts. Jacob really wanted to ride on the Ferris Wheel, but it cost 4 tickets each. I told him that if we went on the Ferris Wheel then we would only have enough tickets to go on one other ride. So he could go on four different rides or just go on the Ferris Wheel and one other ride.

It didn't take him too long to figure out what he wanted to do.

First Jacob and Ephraim rode on the Jeeps. They thought it was fun to "drive" their cars around the track. Next they decided that rather than go on the Merry-go-round with the horses, they would go on the one that had race cars on it.

Check out the boys in their hot rod!

They also rode on a little train, and then they picked a ride where the animal cars went up and down. They ended up on a dragon and thought it was great!

Look, Mommy! We're flying!

Four is definitely better than two... so the boys got to enjoy their four rides instead of going on the Ferris Wheel. What a smart boy Jacob is!

When we got home we had some Creamies to cool down. Luckily I decided to take off Ephraim's shirt because I knew he would get messy.

When I turned around a minute later he had his shorts off too! I guess it's just as well that he did. What a cute, messy boy!