Summer Celebration

A few weeks ago I noticed a Summer Celebration ad in one of our community forums that we got in the mail and I immediately placed it on our family calendar.  The Summer Celebration is a free festival that our local community puts on each summer for one night.  I wasn't entirely sure that we would go or what it would be like but I wanted to be sure we remembered that it was an option come the one day that it was held.

Being that Brian had to head out of town again for work, and the Summer Celebration was held tonight, Kate and I decided to head on over for a look-see!  Folks, we were SO IMPRESSED!  We arrived at the Summer Celebration just after 5 pm, right when it started.  There was a row of blow up bounce houses, slides and obstacle courses!  There were arts and crafts, balloon artists, train rides, hot air balloon rides, LOTS of other kiddos and parents, and live music!  In addition, it was a perfect and unseasonably cool summer evening to partake in such fine festivities!

Bounce house row!

Kate is WAY TOO DISTRACTED for Mommy & Me selfies!

When we first arrived, I showed Kate the toddler bounce house and slide and she wanted nothing to do with them.  She had her heart set on one slide and one slide only: THE BIGGEST ONE THERE!

Seriously, Kate?!

I decided we had better go big or go home, and if that is what she wanted to do then either she would love it and want to do it again or she would hate it and be scarred for life from the trauma.  I trust my little girlie and figured that we'd be able to handle this bad boy together if nothing else.  If we got to the top and she didn't want to go down, well, then we'd figure that out.

Fortunately that wasn't the case!  We got to the top and she barely wanted to sit for a photo with me!

First slide down the biggest slide at the celebration!

The slide was FAST!  And Kate *loved* every second!

We got back in line because she got of an immediately said,
"More?"

So we slid down one more time into this ball pit!

Once Kate saw how much fun bounce houses are, she was
ready to go into the smaller one!

Trying to climb to the slide.

Kate says, "Hey?  Hey you in here?  A little help here?"
(There was a volunteer sitting in the corner.)

That's more like it!

Ready to...

SSSLLLLIIIIDDDEEE!

We then ventured to the big bounce house!  This was Kate's
first bounce house experience.  We saw one at the Clippers
game but you had to be 2 to get in...there were NO
RESTRICTIONS on this one so we gave it a try!

Bounce house love!

Bounce house exit!

Doing some arts & crafts!

Kate made a butterfly keychain/got paint on her shirt that I
still can't get out.

And then she did a little dancing in the street...

...while we waited for this train ride!

CHOO-CHOO!  Chugga Chugga!

We saw the hot air balloon getting filled with air on our train ride!

And while we waited for our butterfly to dry, we watched
some kids make some t-shirts!

Then we topped the night off with a grape snow cone!

The Summer Celebration will be going into the Hendricks' summer traditions!  This free festival was awesome and so much fun for our weekday summer night!