Lantern Fest

On Saturday, May 20th we loaded the kids up and headed for the Lantern Fest.  I had been wanting to go to this since last year...so when I a saw a sweet deal on tickets back in February I quickly picked them up.  We headed to the event fairly early and were able to find a fire pit on the outskirts to reserve for our little family.  As we checked in we were given a cute little box full of goodies.

Phin was so excited because he knew that we were sort of "camping."   We even brought our tent in hopes it would provide some shade.

Back to the box...inside was a s'mores kit, a lighter and a marker to write on the lanterns.

After claiming our spot we headed out in search of food.  I was able to finally try out a co-worker's food truck.  Shylo's specializes in sandwiches and I enjoyed their Philly Cheesesteak.

Then we waited in a massive line to go through one of the inflatable obstacle courses.

They were only letting two kids in at a time and it was taking forever! When we got to the back of the obstacle course I could see why.  It was super hard to climb to the top of the slide.  I ended up pushing Phin up while I held on to Millie...it was quite a workout.

The kids loved the big owls.

Then we headed back to our spot and relaxed until the sun went down.  Millie loved snacking on popcorn.

Both kids loved throwing rocks into the fire pit.

...and carrying the firepit around.

Phin and Millie also got pretty excited when the spotted a drone.  They ran over to this couple on the right and watched as the drone landed.

I loved watching these two play with each other...here they are running around one of the tiki torches.

Then we pulled out our lanterns and scribbled, wrote our dreams, etc.

When it started to get a little colder we started our fire and started making s'mores.  We invited two other groups...that were searching for a fire pit to join us.  It was really nice to make their day by inviting them to share with us.

Seth spotted people flying these light up toys and headed off with the kids to purchase a few.  While he was gone they finally gave the go-ahead for everyone to send their lanters up.  I was a little panicked and didn't think Seth, Phin and Millie were going to make it back. 

It was also much harder for them to spot me once everyone stood up.  They did make it back and we set to work on getting our lanterns to take flight.  It was kind of a stressful experience to be honest.  The darn things were hard to light and then to send up.  There was definitely a technique to getting them in the air.  We watched as many around us ran after their lanterns that were crashing to the ground.  I also ran after one of ours...but by our third lantern we had finally figured the whole process out.

Phin was so happy to be experiencing the whole thing.  It was really quite breathtaking.

Words really can't do it justice...it was just magical to be there in the middle of it.

It was also pretty magical to be experiencing it with these two.

We loved almost the whole experience...getting out of the parking lot was a disaster.  Luckily the kids passed out as soon as we got in the car.  We sat in our car for almost an hour just waiting for the crowds to die down...but nobody seemed to really be moving.  Finally we decided to brave it and inched our way into line.  One exit for everyone in the parking lot...was a bad idea.  We didn't end up getting home until about 1:00 AM.  Phin talked about the whole thing for days.  It was a fun way to kick off the coming of Summer.