Canoe Fest 2009

Last weekend I took the girls back to my hometown for the 43rd annual Canoe Festival. A small town celebration with canoe races down the river as the main attraction. The 4 high school classes vote before school is out for a class representative. They sell tickets, and the one who sells the most is the Canoe Fest Princess. The parade on Sunday is well over an hour and a half. On Saturday night my parents and I took them to the carnival. Both girls love the rides. Shelby is able to ride a few of the bigger rides with me. We went on the Spider which is a ride that dips up and down as you rotate in a circle while your individual "car" spins around. My sister and I took her on that a couple of years ago and she yelled go faster! So as we get on, the ride operator told her if she felt sick or wanted off just to raise her hand. I said not to worry, she would be yelling for the ride to go faster. While they are filling the cars, you slowly creep up higher and higher. She says, "Doesn't this go any faster"? And then when we are sitting at the highest point, she is looking all over and says, "I can see the whole carnival from here"! I don't think she stopped laughing or squealing the entire ride and she yelled, "I am laughing with joy"! I think as I get older, it is getting harder and harder for me to ride that stuff which is disappointing because I do like the rides. I don't have a problem while on the ride, but after I feel like my brain has been rattled. From that ride we headed to the Ferris Wheel and while waiting in line I could hardly carry on a conversation with a couple of my high school classmates! I took both girls on the Ferris Wheel which is my least favorite ride! If I am going to be up that high, I prefer to keep moving. It is torture to sit up at the top with the little seat rocking back and forth with 2 kids who keep leaning forward! I don't know how many times I said, "Sit back"! I could ride every roller coaster at Six Flags just fine, but those carnival rides are something different all together! After we did the rides we watched the fireworks and then headed home for bed. As we were going down my parents' driveway Morgan says, "I'm not very happy. I didn't get to ride that ride". We finally figured out she was talking about the Gravitron! I didn't go on the ride but I think it compares to the ride at Six Flags where you spin in a circle at a ridiculous speed and when you stick to the wall the floor drops under your feet. I think it will be a few years before she is allowed to ride that ride! Here are a few pictures from the carnival.

At the parade, Shelby loved the UW-Wisconsin cheerleaders & Bucky Badger. She also liked the flag twirlers in the high school band (I know they have an official name but I have been out of HS too long and I was never in the band). I think it is probably the sparkly outfits they get to wear. The ladies walking on stilts are pretty good too. They both like the fight for collecting candy. (Sorry for the sideways photos in my latest blogs, I can't get them to flip)!