Community Shindig

Every year, our neighborhood has a summer event at the local park. Every year, I've completely forgotten about it by the time it comes around. I almost forgot this year as well, but a parent reminded me about it when I picked up the kids from camp, so the kids and I went and checked it out after dinner.

Lots of local businesses/preschools/schools with booths, treats, and various goodies. The local Ace Hardware supplies free ice cream bars for everyone. Mal opted for the rainbow popsicle, while Gareth and I got Haagen Dazs ice cream bars. Then Gareth was off to play. A perk to him being older now is that I can let him go off on his own and trust that he will not wander off with strangers or run into the road, but will stay on the playground and circle back to let me know where he is once in a while. This frees me up to spend all my energy not losing Mal. However, this means all my pictures of the event are of Mal.

Popsicle and balloon light saber in hand, listening to the band play

The toy store set up some tracks and handed out free train cars to kids. Mal was happily entertained here for a bit while I chatted with his former preschool teachers - it was so fun to catch up!

After playing for a bit, Mal got in line for face paint with his friend from Kindergarten/aftercare/camp. Apparently he wins the prize for the wiggliest face paint customer of the day, but it still turned out pretty cool looking.

Mal also got a water bottle from the local Catholic school, which he dubbed "the nun school" as we passed it while walking to the event (I think they have a stained glass of Mary on the church portion, which he thought was a nun?). We watched Sound of Music recently and he was fascinated by the nuns, so after walking past the school/church he kept asking me where the nuns were because he wanted to stare at them. No nuns at this Catholic school though, so he's out of luck.

Gareth wandered around to all the tables eventually, grabbing goodies from what was left - cookies, snow cone, a free book (he chose The Hunger Games), balloon sword, etc. We got caught on our way out by the little league table as a dad recognized us from the school. When asked, Mal claimed that he wanted to play baseball in the spring, so I signed up to get a reminder about registration. We'll see if he actually wants to participate by the time spring rolls around again.