4th of July: over-indulged kids

I normally love love love the 4th of July. I'm a big kid at heart- fireworks make me smile. This 4th we didn't stay up to watch the fireworks because E and J were pooped out from spending all afternoon carousing around Riverfront Park.  I did have a lot of fun hanging out with my kids, even if I didn't get to watch my precious fireworks.

My m.i.l. suggested we picnic at the park, walk around and look at the booths, and go on the little rides in the Pavilion.  She had seen on the news that day passes were 1/2 off.  We ate a great lunch by Spokane's art/play equipment known as the "Big Red Wagon." E and J had fun going down the handle/slide and climbing up on the wheels.

Even H was in a relatively good mood. He was willing to smile (sort of) for a rare photo of us.

  We didn't reach the Pavilion until 1:30. Turns out the day passes were only on sale for until 1:00 pm.   So my m.i.l. bought one for each kid. E and J had a blast.  They went excitedly from ride to ride. The adults (including my brother-in-law and his girlfriend) sat and people watched. There are some strange people in the world...

The line for the Octopus and the Ferris Wheel were quite long.  H declared that the kids (ahem- HE) was not going to wait in those lines.  So we decided to go peruse the booths along the walkways.

The booths were AMAZING!!!



Ok. I lied. There wasn't anything good going on. However, we did see a clown making lame balloon animals which cheered up the kids, I sucked down an over-priced strawberry lemonaid (4.00 for a 16 oz?! Rip-off) and my brother-in-law nabbed himself a rad American-flag gun balloon.

We ended our family excursion by letting the kids ride on Spokane's historic Looef Carousel. It's amazing!
We parted ways with H's family and let the kids go on a few more rides and saw an IMAX movie,Born to be Wild.  Very cute! We then hit up Cyrus O'Leary's for dinner. I'm pretty sure E and J had a lot of fun. J fell asleep in the car as soon as we left the parking lot.

Maybe next year the kids will manage to stay up for the fireworks!