Day two was also Father's Day. My little Ella got up before everyone else and made Jon breakfast in bed. She poured a nice big bowl of fruity pebbles with a side of Diet Mt. Dew. It was so sweet because no one encouraged her to do it and I didn't even remind her right before bed that it was Father's Day the next day.
Soon we were all in bed and just enjoying being a family together again. Thats the thing about kids, they drive you nuts half the time and are melting your heart the other half.
June 19th also happened to be a big celebration called "The Midnight Sun Festival". We headed to downtown Fairbanks where there were games, food venders, music, entertainment and to Ella's great delight, pony rides. She is simply fearless with animals. She went right up to one of the larger ponies and made friends but when it came to riding time she wanted the big horse, Typhoon.
Our little cowgirl. She is such a joyful spirit with so littler inhibition. She talked to the trainers and wanted to know every aspect of horse care and their personalities. Then she helped talk to a little girl in in line who wasn't so sure about getting on the back of an animal three times her size. Ella encouraged and walked next to her for most of her ride. When we got to the live music she just started dancing and spinning around although every one else was enjoying the music from their seats. Well, who can blame her with a 60's cover band belting out "Mustang Sally"? I will forever have this picture of her running to the middle of the crowd and just losing herself in the music with a big puff of blue cotton candy in one hand.
Caden wasn't interested in riding the ponies. He was the horse whisperer. There were these two one month old ponies just wondering free in the park area where the horse rides were. No fences or harnesses, just walking around but very skittish. Kids kept trying to get close enough to touch them but the ponies would run whenever they got near. Caden has this very zen vibe about him. He was quiet and slowly walked behind them for at least a half hour and eventually they were comfortable enough with him to let him get right next to them. Seriously everyone just kind of stayed back and marveled that the ponies let him stand with them and walk with them.
After pony rides and too much junk food the next obvious activity was hitting the bounce house, bounce obstacle course, and getting into an inflatable arena where you pad up and fling an inflatable mace at one another trying to knock your opponent off their inflatable pillars. Jon and the kids + Ally did this activity. There would be more pictures of it but Danali kept trying to crawl up the exit of the bounce house when my back was turned. Look at the air she's getting. She was thrilled!
Ally was fearless at climbing the rock wall. Scaled right up to the top.
What a fantastic day.
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