Bats and the Carnival

We had a jam-packed day planned yesterday, with nature class, the WUES carnival and tickets for Will and Gene to see The Diary of a Worm, a Spider and a Fly. The day started out great with a hearty breakfast and then the boys and I were on our way to learn all about bats at the Arboretum.
Bats get a bad rap, but I love them (did you know one bat can eat 6000 mosquitoes in an hour?) and I was excited for my boys to learn more about bats. We made it through show-and-tell and went on our nature walk when Will told me he felt hot. The poor kid was burning up, so we cut out early and headed home. Will fell back asleep at 10:30, just as Nana and Pop arrived to join us for our outing to Will's school's HUGE carnival. We decided that I would stay home with Will and send the rest of the crew out to enjoy the day (and our pre-paid tickets!).

Nana took a bunch of great pictures for me. You can't really tell how large this carnival is from the pictures, but Gene, Nana, and Pop all told me they had never seen such a large festival at a school/neighborhood before. The city closes the entire block in front of the school (it is a very long block) and there were at least 7 bounce houses and numerous game booths plus a little kids' area and sweet shop, bazaar and food stands. It is a big fundraiser for our school's PTO and a lot of fun too!

Wells Fargo came out with a real stagecoach.

They had Chick-Fil-A for lunch.
And then my sweet Gene took over my volunteer shift at the "Extreme T-Ball" booth (in the blazing hot sun) while Nana and Pop continued exploring with Henry. Thank you, all!
Henry bounced and bounced and bounced in the bounce houses.
Double thumbs up!This was a huge dragon bounce house. Henry loved it!I heard that cookies were eaten. And Pop found the cotton candy!Henry wasn't too sure about it at first. But then he realized it was just sugar!Yum!!Will was disappointed to miss out on all the fun of the day, but he was so good that he didn't once complain and actually told me that it was okay because he got to spend some special time with me while everyone else was out. Sweet boy... I am hoping to make it up to him next weekend with an outing to ArBOOetum and in December with a trip to a symphony concert. Maybe we'll even head out to the Waugh Street Bridge to see the bats come out!