KidsFest

Over the last few years it has become a tradition for our family to help out at the yearly KidFest event put on by the Arts Council. So that was what we did today. The theme this year was "Atlantis Under the Sea," and, appropriately, it poured down rain on and off throughout the day. But otherwise it really was a lovely day! (And the rain kept it cool and discouraged the crowds  just the right amount!).

Travis was assigned this octopus toss thing, which involved flinging soaking wet "octopi" (made of tied together sponge and mop fabric strips). He found touching the soggy (and not so clean) sponge stuff distasteful and soon migrated to the snowcone booth, where he happily spent most of the afternoon helping serve snowcones.

Ed and I got "Poseidon's Pool." Which was a wading pool filled with sand in which plastic fish and other plastic marine creatures were buried. The children were supposed to dig for them with nets (very tough going in wet sand) and/or scoops, and then they traded their finds in on candy (or kept the plastic fish, as one very honest mother informed me that her daughter had done).  It was a good assignment, if a little sandy. Of course, Ed makes me play the "bad cop" and today there were an unusually high number of poorly supervised small children. Not only did I have to stifle the ambitions of big kids to see how quickly they could "win" all the candy, but I also got to tell several toddlers (in my moderately loud, "Now darn it you Bad Mother, pay Attention to your Child!" voice) that they must Not throw the sand all over as "someone" would get sand in their eyes. Not to mention dealing with the middle sized kids who decided that tossing octopi was for weenies and the better sport would be had by throwing them hard and fast (and soaking wet) through the crowd. But I wasn't a librarian all those years for nothing, and I managed! Ed just smiled sweetly and handed out candy.

 Katie was part of a team manning the "fishing" station. Here she is holding a rod (a long stick with a string and clothes pin on the end) during a lull.

 She stuck to her job the whole time -- I was very proud of her.

You probably can't see if, but we were right beside the fish stamping booth. There were actually big, rubber fish that the kids painted, then pressed onto paper. They came out very nicely!

The crowds got a little much after lunch, but then a lovely, cooling rain sent some of them home and we finished the afternoon very happily.