Carnival Night

Their neon yellow bands are on and these kids are excited because it's carnival night!

Upon entering the school building I was instantly transported back in time to my childhood Halloween school carnival. The second most anticipated event of the year. The Strawberry Festival boasting the "World' Largest Shortcake" was of course the first.



The carnival was not only fun but educational like the year they did silhouettes and I consciously realized for the first time that I really do have a pointy chin. Or, that 7th and 8th grade girls are drama queens. I'm not a super fan of haunted houses and I don't like to touch peeled grapes that are suppose to be eyes or wet spaghetti for something I'm assuming should have been inside the body.



They had all the games of my past like the lollipop tree, bean bag toss, spinning wheel, and most importantly the Cake Walk. The one in 40 chance that you will be so lucky to walk away with such an exquisite homemade delight that your parents could not deny you because you had won it and it was yours. The modern day cake walk still had all the fun, music and excitement but unfortunately the homemade delight no longer exists due to food handling laws. Nowadays children get to pick from an assortment of Oreos, Twinkies, doughnuts, and those awful cardboard tasting store made sugar cookies. Oh how I'll miss that decorative long table full of butter cream frosted round and 9x13 cakes.



The biggest surprise of the night was the realization that Gray has never experienced real cotton candy. He devours cotton candy ice cream but hand him a stick of pink puffy stuff and he will freak out. Two hands over his mouth and head shaking side to side. Good thing there were plenty of us to devour that yummy sweet pink stuff for him.



Tonight my adult eyes saw aging games that are pulled out year after year for who knows how many decades, countless hours given by dedicated parents, hundreds of plastic toys that break within 24hours, sweaty kids running around and Friday tired parents. Despite what my adult eyes saw tonight I remembered the carnival through my 10-year old eyes and knew that my children's memories would forever feel the same excitement and enthusiasm as I did tonight.

Thanks for the invite Fruits Family we ALL had a blast. Hoping for a yearly tradition.