Carnival!

Yesterday, after morning errands, we were all sitting around our living room kind of sizing each other up and trying to keep Eleri from consuming any more carpet fluff, when I heard the strains of hard-pumping music from down the street. I sat straight up and said, that's it, we're getting otu of the house. And off we went, down the block to the School Carnival.

We ran into Elsie there--her mom, Agnes, is a teacher at the school--as well as Titi Millie, and Dory and Amanda, the new women who work at Clio's day care. A regular family affair.

The play yard was filled with not one but FIVE of those huge blow-up bouncy structures. Clio and Elsie took on the smallest- your standard castle.


I you look closely at the last picture, above, you can see that Dave managed to catch both girls' smiling faces in one little diamond of mesh. In fact, Clio loved it so much that when it was time to come out she started bawling as only Clio can- we didn't know if she was hurt or upset.

They also went, with their dads, into a bigger contraption that I unfortunately didn't photograph- it was like an obstacle course with ladders and slides and tunnels; Dave said it was about 150 degrees in the middle and they were barefoot. Clio kept screaming, but when they finished she said, Again!

Afterwards the girls cooled off in the pool at Elsie's house. Let me just mention that Elsie's backyard is a kid's wonderland that puts our little deck to shame: Cars


Bikes (not that Clio shows any interest in riding her own tricycle)


And a slide-



into the pool!


As for me and Eleri? We headed home for a long nap (for her) and some cleaning and cooking (me.) It was a good day.