CHCC Fall Festival (2009)

This weekend was all about annual fall events! Today was the Chapel Hill Country Club Fall Festival, our 3rd. Dale made it home from Atlanta just in time to join us, and Ivie was thrilled to see him walk through the door. I'm pretty sure nothing surpasses the sweetness of a reunion between daddy and daughter after a 5-day hiatus. Neither one couldn't get enough hugs...

We ate lunch before going, so we were able to skip the food stand. But Ivie DID check out the bounce houses, the ponies (she got to ride by herself this year!), the swings, the slide, and the various games that were new to the festival this year. Dale probably wouldn't want it to be in the blog, but I threw the football through the tire on my second try. Dale's at 4 and (still) counting. When we walked away, he was muttering something about me being shorter, so the frame of the booth wasn't in my way? I'm not buying it...

A few extra words about the slide. For some reason, Ivie didn't want to go by herself today. So I volunteered to go with her while Dale hung with Mac and manned the camera. Can I just say that climbing the inflatable stairs to the top of that particular slide was one of the hardest things I've had to do? I guarantee that Ivie couldn't have made it herself. I pretty much had to push her up, while trying not to slip myself. I failed several times, and both of us slid back to the bottom. The girls behind us were getting tired of waiting. It was fairly embarrassing, to say the least. And the whole "staircase" smelled like furniture polish. I think it was a trick by the operators to get some amusement out of their otherwise boring day. But, anyway, we finally made it to the top. And hopefully next time around Ivie won't remember how her mommy almost failed her on the kiddie slide!

Macie's at a tough age for an event like this. She obviously knows she can walk, so she doesn't want to be in her stroller. But when we got her out, she was picking things up off the ground to try to eat or snagging unsuspecting children's shoes from outside the bounce houses. But we were able to appease her with a lollipop, a stuffed bear, and her favorite water bottle (which we think is her favorite because it belongs to Ivie).

All-in-all, we were there a grand total of 57 minutes. Long enough to do everything Ivie wanted, and short enough to avoid total meltdowns by either of the very-tired-and-ready-for-nap girls. Success!

Along with the collage of pictures from today, I'm also going to include a couple that span the last 3 years of the festival to show how Ivie's grown.