Park County Fair

We went to the fair Thursday night, along with Charlie's parents and a couple other relatives. We started off in one of the exhibit halls. We saw that they were doing free caricatures. She was leaving at 9 (it was probably around 7), so we figured we had time to go eat and come back before we went on rides. We headed over to the pavilion to find some food. I was looking around for some drinks, so I called Charlie to ask him what Sam wanted to drink. He answered, but kind of hung up really fast. I figured it might be just as easy to go find Sam and ask him myself. This is what I came back to:

Apparently, Charlie and Sam were moving somewhere else right when the guy asked for a volunteer. I guess he thought Sam was volunteering, because he picked him up and took him on stage. Charlie said that he had tried juggling with Sam, but Sam couldn't do it, so he compromised and juggled Sam instead.

After eating, we headed over to the exhibit hall. There was a pretty long line, and we weren't sure we were going to make it. While drawing the group almost right ahead of us, the lady took a sheet of paper and wrote  "Last One." I was pretty bummed, because Sam was pretty excited to get drawn, and I thought it would be fun too. Luckily, she handed it to the last person in line and continued drawing everyone that was still in line. It was finally our turn. She did a great job, especially considering Brett was bouncing off the walls and I couldn't keep him in one place. That probably made it hard for her to draw him, as well as me. We didn't actually start on the rides until about 9:30.

 We were debating getting a bracelet for Sam, so he could go on all the rides as much as he wanted. We weren't sure it would be worth the money, since it was already so late, but we decided he probably would, so Gil went and got him one. It definitely paid itself off. There weren't a lot of kids by that time of the night, so he didn't have to wait in line very long for anything. He had 3 favorite rides. This car one:

 The big slide:

 And "the one that had the bridges you climb on and then you go really fast down the slide"

 We laughed the first time he went up. He is not a fan of heights, and you could see through the slats of the bridge. He pretty much crawled the whole way. But each time he went back, he got better and better. By the end of the night, he was running across them.

Sam would shoot out of the slide. He was wearing slick shorts, so it made him go really fast. They had a rubber mat at the bottom, but he shot past it about every time.

 He wanted to do some rides with us as well. I thought he might like the Scrambler. It was one of my favorite rides in Lagoon, so I thought we would try it. Charlie was a little hesitant because it looked like it went really fast, but I thought it would be fine. Sam was so excited. It was great, for the first little while. It wasn't going too fast, but still fast enough. Then they turned up the speed. It was too fast, even for me. Sam just kept saying he didn't like it and he wanted off. Finally, the ride came to a stop, but apparently, it was just to start it going backwards. Sam wasn't too happy. "If we stop again, are they going to make us keep going again?" Yeah, he didn't like it. I had bought quite a few tickets for us, thinking that we would use them on the bigger rides with Sam, but after that, he didn't want to do any more big rides.

 Charlie and I decided to take the remaining tickets and go on the bigger rides together. What I wasn't aware of when I was going to buy the tickets was that each ticket cost $1, and each ride cost at least 3 tickets each. So using up the tickets it took to go on the Scrambler, we had 16 tickets left. That was enough to go on 2 rides. It was ridiculous. We were debating which rides to go on. There wasn't much of a selection. I was feeling a little sick, so I didn't want to go on a spinny ride. That left even fewer options. We finally decided on one that has little seats, kind of like a ferris wheel, but with your legs dangling and you go faster. We stood in line for quite a while before we decided it wasn't worth the wait. Then we went to the big ship that swings back and forth. It was fun, but Charlie said it made him kind of sick, so we didn't want to spend our remaining 8 tickets doing that one again. Charlie had been trying to talk me into doing a ride that looks like a big spaceship. You go inside and it basically just spins you so fast that you can't move. You're not even buckled into the ride. I think that's what was freaking me out. I hate rides that you're not buckled in, and I really hate rides that are really really fast but aren't bolted into the ground or anything. After seeing that we literally had no other option, I finally gave in. I did freak out a little bit, but calmed down after it got going. It wasn't bad, and it didn't feel like you were spinning at a ridiculously high speed.

So we spent $20 on tickets, and got to go on 3 rides, which included the ride with Sam. Woohoo. But Sam had a blast, and that's the real reason we were going in the first place. We didn't actually leave until after 11, and Sam was still wanting to go more. Luckily, he was in a good mood, and lack of sleep hadn't set off his temper, so he came right to the car without any issue. On the way home, he kept telling us how much fun everything was, "except the ride I went on with Mommy. That was the worst!"

Yesterday, we went to Cody to eat at Chinese with the family that's in town. Afterward, we headed to visit my brother. They've got some cool playground equipment, and the kids were having great fun. Brett wouldn't sit still, so I just let him go. On one of the pieces, he was able to climb up to the top by himself, then he would go down the slide. I was trying to help him sit down to slide, but he was too fast and ended up going head first. He didn't go fast enough to fall off, so I just let him keep going that way. He seemed to enjoy it.

Also, look what he's doing now:

My parents were watching the boys one night. When they brought them back, my mom said, "Looka t Brett's new trick." She set him down and he took a few steps to me. Since then, he's been trying to get the hang of it, but still not there. He can stand by himself if he forgets that he can't, and he's getting steadier on his feet. It won't be too long before he's running around and there will be no way to stop him :)