Hooray for Hand Sanitizer!

Rob and I recently took the chillens to the Orem Freedom Festival. I love to pry my family out of the daily grind and do something totally different as often as possible. I think that allowing my children to crawl through a filthy, portable "fun house" definitely counts as something different. Their favorite ride was definitely the "Big Slide" (such clever names these carnival people come up with). It's the one where you hike up one million narrow metal stairs that have been screwed together moments earlier while holding a dirty potato sack in one hand and clutching your child in the other. Once you get to the top there is a carny (definition: an "interesting" looking person missing a significant amount of teeth with dirty yellow finger nails, an over sized T-shirt, and long stringy hair, unless they are female in which case the hair is short like a boy's and they have no bra). The carny was sitting on the steps that lead us to the top of the slide and we had to maneuver our way around her as we awkwardly situated our potato sacks and children into the sliding position. Conveniently for us there were four slides that sat side by side. With the children on the two inside slides and Rob and I hovering over them on the outside slides, we counted to three and shoved off. It was actually really fun! The best part by far was the intense squeals of joy coming from the children. Maggie shot off ahead of us and finished first. As we hit the bottom, the kids both stood up clumsily, slipping on their potato sacks and screeched "AGAIN! AGAIN!!" Unfortunately the line was 35 minutes long and we had other filthy activities to participate in (see pictures). After that there were more rides that appeared to be duct taped together and Tiger's Blood snow cones. It took me a minute to get over the name. I almost vomited when I read it in the list of flavors, but Charlotte assured me it was delicious. Over all it was a very fun day that we will most definitely make a tradition. I would recommend it to anyone that can pack up the hand sanitizer and be prepared to look the other way as their children roll through more germs than you are willing to imagine.