Too Much Excitement For One Night

Well, I love the fourth of July. I love to take the kids to see fireworks and have barbecues and wear those corny shirts that you can only wear once. This year though, turned out to be quite a bummer. First of all, all of our family was out of town, so there was no swimming and barbecuing. So we thought that we would make it a fun night and go somewhere to watch fireworks. We went down to Mesquite High School because they had fun things for the kids to do. Well the sky was looking kind of nasty and I wasn't sure if we should go, but Judd insisted that we would be fine. We arrived at Mesquite at about 7:00 p.m. and all was well, besides the fact that it was stinking hot!!! They had a bunch of stuff for kids to do, water activities and jumping castles. They were charging $1 per ride so I bought each kids 5 tickets. They couldn't decide what to do first. Madison wanted to jump in the princess jumping castle and Nolan wanted to jump in the dinosaur jumping castle. We picked the dinosaur castle and its a good thing too. As soon as we got in line the wind started blowing like crazy. Somehow, the princess castle deflated and blew over!!! Thank goodness there were no kids in there. Then Nolan started freaking out because the huge dinosaur head that was on top of the jumping castle was blowing down towards him. Poor kid, I can't imagine what he was thinking. The look in his eyes was one of pure terror. I thought this was kind of funny, shows how insensitive I am. He kept screaming "don't put me in there!!" I think he may be traumatized and never jump in a jumping castle again. So, on we go... The wind was blowing harder and dust storms were blowing in. I decided that being out there with all of the kids was a bad idea. The baby was sound asleep in the stroller through all of this, thank goodness. I told Judd we needed to go, and I would take the kids back to the car while he helped his friend pack up his stuff. So here I was pushing a stroller loaded with lawn chairs, food, drinks, blankets, and a baby; trying to keep him covered because the wind kept blowing the shade visor thing down, and trying to hold the stroller up because it was trying to blow over. Madi and Nolan are at my heals, and I can't remember where we parked. The kids are crying because of the storm and we are walking up and down every isle of the parking lot. Somehow, I totally kept cool, and didn't scream or flip anyone off. It was amazing. We finally found the car and are still alive today. Whew! We ended up watching fireworks on TV at home which was better than nothing. Here is a picture of the kids right before the drama unfolded. I hope next year brings even more excitement. Oh yeah, I never did get my $10 back. Blast!