Maria is at a new stage in her life where she gets excited about school festivals because “her friends will be there.”

We had our community annual Ox Roast on Thursday, Friday and Saturday this weekend. On Thursday, she begged me to take her and her friend to the Roast. I had just suffered an atrociously long day at work but I remembered being her age and looking so forward to these festivals to play and hang out with friends. So I agreed.

There weren’t too many other sucker parents down there! But the girls had a blast after spending $25 on “all you can ride” wristbands for them. I drew the line at the $5 games where you try to shoot in a hole or toss a bag in bucket because we rarely win and when we do, the prize is cherished for three minutes and then tossed.

Maria loved rock climbing – she got to the top easily (even in flats!).

She went on the swings because her friend begged her. Unfortunately, she is inflicted with her mom’s intolerance for circular motion at high speed. She looked green after that ride. So we chilled it out with the calm slide and more rock climbing.

When Ri’s stomach was still little queasy, we went real low key with the baby bathtub ride. I didn’t think Ri would ever still go on this ride but she surprised me (her stomach probably begged her). It took me back to when she was a toddler.

I finally dragged them out of there at 8:45 and we grabbed some nutritious fair food on the way.

On Friday morning, Mario found out that Ri had gone to the festival. He cried and cried about not going. So, I promised to take him Friday night. Yeah, I’m a sucker. Ri and Mario and I got on our bikes and headed down to the Roast after I got home from work. I knew that we’d be back on Saturday so I put my foot down on wristbands. I allowed them to ride on two rides each and then they scored a free ride on the slide because of a change in shifts. Mario found the cotten candy booth and they engorged themselves on extra big sticks of goo.

On Saturday, Maria had a party for one of her classmates at 2:00. I thought that she may be tired after that party and want to chill. Yeah right. We came home and her and Mario begged for more Ox Roast. I thought maybe there would be a prize for hitting it three nights in a row but the only prize was spending a boat load of cash on rides and bounceys, and food. Not really, the prize was letting the kids have these experiences, watching them laugh, letting them boost their courage (Mario went down the slide without me for once!), and teaching them that life is what you make it. When I wouldn’t let them play the $5 games, they whined for a minute but then I told them about everything else that was there and they quickly let it go and ran to the swings to play.

I was spent on Saturday night when we got home at 9:30 but it was a good kind of spent like when you run a fast race or work for hours in the yard. Documentation of the fun: