Last minute summer fun

We haven't gotten to do a WHOLE lot this summer with Mike working all week, on call every other weekend, and me working weddings on the weekends. A couple of weeks ago we headed to the water slides mid-week just to get SOMETHING in this summer. So two days ago I packed the kids up around 11 in the morning and headed to the Moses Lake water slides for some quick fun before I had to rush back for a quick photo session in the evening.

Then yesterday, we all went in separate cars to the Moses Lake fairgrounds for some quick fun while Mike had is on-call phone with him. That's the only way we could really do anything this summer. It was super fun, though, and I am really regretting not having a camera. The kids were all finally to an age where they could go on just about everything and were happy to do so without holding our hands. We were able to just lay back and relax and let them having a blast.

There was an animal man there with lots of wild animals. We saw cougars, a few wolves, alligator, and lots of other animals. At one point, he told the crowd to step back while he pulled out some very venomous snakes. (kids were in the front row and they actually did end up dropping one! but only on the stage, not down below). So guess whos child decided to sneak back up to the front- closer than they wanted- reaching through the rails, and decided it was a good idea to PET the alligators tail? My son. My ELDEST son. Of course it was my son... no one elses son would do that! Then he proceeded to yell how cool he was that he touched the alligators tail letting everyone know how dumb he was. Smart. "Little boy... where are your parents?" I say.

The boys were contestants in the tractor pull. Ethan was 1" from making it to round 3. Cohen actually made it to round 3 and shockingly was only 2" from making it to round 4. We were told he was the only 4 year old they have seen make it to round 3. Hows that for iron boy? We thought that was pretty cool! He got 3rd place. 1st place was a 9 yr old and 2nd place was a 8 yr old.

The highlight (I think for all of us) was the ELEPHANTS! They were doing elephant rides but it was so hot that they kept "closing the ride" and instead we got to watch the elephants hose off with a water truck. It was SO cool. They were frolicking around, spraying themselves, laying down, flipping water, and then when the guy turned off the water truck, one of the elephants got really loud (I've never heard an elephant before) and he realized the protest and turned the water back on. It was really fun. I've never seen elephants do more than stand around so it was a real treat!