Rainy Rose Festival Fun

Back to how I get excited to do fun things with the kids - we went down to Waterfront Village today for the Rose Festival! Thank you to Jen for telling me that the rides were cheap on Mondays, and thank you to the website for letting me know that admission is free before 4 - and sometimes even at 4:02 if you're really lucky! No thank you to parking in the wrong parking garage before 5 but that's a whole different, bitter, and not as fun story.
Anyway, what fun! I'm kinda sad Cooper missed out on the Daddy of all Dance-Off competition, but that's okay, the world might not be ready for that. His girlies still love it when he dances and I've always been a big fan of Bill Cosby so I like it too. Love you hun. But despite the fact that it starting raining on us, we had a blast. We ended up being there for 3 1/2 hours - which apparently flies by when you're trying to use up your tickets by finding rides that allow really really short customers.
So here we are in the featured dino exhibit:
This did not go well the first time. Despite numerous attempts to convince Jell that they were fake, every little muscle in her body was tense and she quickly announced she'd had enough. On our way out though, she wanted more. In the second picture, she was also supposed to be making a scary dino face. Instead, she looks cute and I look like a weirdo.
Then they got to go dig for dino fossils, which for them is just a good excuse to play in the sand. However, Meri was kind of confused as to why her shovel (brush) was so lame.
Later, we found a large group of hula hoops on the ground. Not sure why they were there, but nobody charged us any money so we played with them. Meri tried:
And I figured out how to hula hoop again after like 20 years of not remembering how - thank you to my husband for the very helpful type. I know, I'm a loser - who can't hula hoop except me?

Daddy showed off his skills, of which Jell was most impressed (the second picture is of her watching him - so cute!)












Gotta say though, the petting zoo ... kind of a let down this year. I mean, Jell laughed her head off every time a goat stuck its head through the bars at her, but last year we happened to witness a rabbit giving birth. Gotta tell you, brand new baby bunnies are not at all cute. Nasty really. But the girls were crazy excited that they could pet the bunnies while we were holding them. And when the bunnies had enough and started scratching our hands off, the girls rolled with laughter.











On to the rides! Jell totally surprised us (what's new?) and loved the rides! She was so brave, and it was so fun to see her full of such joy!
Sadly, Meri was only tall enough for the merry-go-round, but at least she loved it! Both times. The rest of the time, she watched sadly through the bars as Jenelle went on all the other rides. Sad!






























And as a treat, we bought them cotton candy. I was all excited for them to try it for the first time. Meri refused. She kept shoving it away and sticking out her tongue, which is Meri for "yuck." The child will eat paper - did she really think this would be worse? Jell had one bite and told us she didn't want anymore. Total disappointment. What's worse is that we found out we agree. I totally remember it being delicious as a kid. Go figure.
But all in all, a great Portland afternoon. However, according to the website, the WaMu Waterfront Village received the Gold Pinnacle Award in 2007 for having the best children's entertainment in the world. Now that sounds a little nuts. We had a good time and all, but either we missed out on a whole lot or uh, Disneyland isn't all I remembered it being.