I had this vision of going to the local carnival in Austin. I pictured myself wearing boots in a floral breezy dress (inspired by Hope Floats of course) with my cowboy on my right and the little'uns running around at my feet. I pictured the family riding rides together, eating funnel cakes, carnival lights sparkling in our eyes, and Chase winning me a giant hot pink panda bear.
We heard about the rodeo and waited until after spring break to go (I learned from my San Antonio Zoo experience) and were pleasantly surprised by the small crowds of people that Monday afternoon. We soon discovered why there weren't very many people. The Austin Rodeo/Carnival is expensive!! We expected an admission fee but parking alone was $10 and then the rides were absolutely ridiculous. You pay for the rides with tokens. Each token is a dollar but each ride is four tokens. We're talking the little train that goes around in a circle....$4 dollars for a 2 minute ride. Carousel...$3 tokens. If I was a zillionaire I would still be angry with the system.
These were just the kid rides. The adult rides were 8-10 tokens per ride. We ended up buying an all day pass for one person so Sadie could ride all the rides and occasionally bought a ride or too for Jack. He was too short to ride most of them. By the time we got hungry I refused to give the people in charge any more of our money. We ate granola bars from my diaper bag and gave the kids stuff from our mini cooler. We ate when we got home. It was painful because even though Sadie and Jack were having fun we couldn't stop thinking about the fact that we probably could have purchased Sea World passes for the dough we spent that night.
I would have been happy to pay a dollar for each ride but seriously three tokens to go down a long slide? Four dollars to ride a pony?! At the end of the day we decided it was semi worth it because the kids had so much fun, but our feet hurt (cowboy boots...I wanted to be Sandra Bullock for the evening)and our stomachs growled.
The highlights were seeing a Texas long horn, riding the pony (for Sadie), playing in baby land (for free) while Sadie and Dad rode some rides, riding the roller coaster over and over again with Sades, seeing Jack's face on the carousel, pig races, laughing that Jack was more interested in the buckets of water near the animals than the actual animals, and not when Jack got his finger caught in a turkey's beak.
To top it all off, we got pulled over for running a yellow/red light on the way home. The cop asked us how the rodeo was and I said "well after this ticket...expensive!!!" He took pity on us after the kids woke up from flashing lights and the suddenly motionless vehicle (it was 10:45) and were screaming their bloody guts out.
It was the first time I've welcomed such behavior because I wanted the cop to feel bad for #1 pulling me over for such a dumb reason and #2 for waking up the tired and sleepy kids. He gave me a warning and then practically followed us home afterwards. I maneuvered the car like I was taking my driving test back in 1996. As Sadie always says "red means stop, green means go, and yellow means hurry up."
I had this vision of going to the local carnival in Austin. I pictured myself wearing boots in a floral breezy dress (inspired by Hope Floats of course) with my cowboy on my right and the little'uns running around at my feet. I pictured the family riding rides together, eating funnel cakes, carnival lights sparkling in our eyes, and Chase winning me a giant hot pink panda bear. 
We heard about the rodeo and waited until after spring break to go (I learned from my San Antonio Zoo experience) and were pleasantly surprised by the small crowds of people that Monday afternoon. We soon discovered why there weren't very many people. The Austin Rodeo/Carnival is expensive!! We expected an admission fee but parking alone was $10 and then the rides were absolutely ridiculous. You pay for the rides with tokens. Each token is a dollar but each ride is four tokens. We're talking the little train that goes around in a circle....$4 dollars for a 2 minute ride. Carousel...$3 tokens. If I was a zillionaire I would still be angry with the system.
These were just the kid rides. The adult rides were 8-10 tokens per ride. We ended up buying an all day pass for one person so Sadie could ride all the rides and occasionally bought a ride or too for Jack. He was too short to ride most of them. By the time we got hungry I refused to give the people in charge any more of our money. We ate granola bars from my diaper bag and gave the kids stuff from our mini cooler. We ate when we got home. It was painful because even though Sadie and Jack were having fun we couldn't stop thinking about the fact that we probably could have purchased Sea World passes for the dough we spent that night. 
I would have been happy to pay a dollar for each ride but seriously three tokens to go down a long slide? Four dollars to ride a pony?! At the end of the day we decided it was semi worth it because the kids had so much fun, but our feet hurt (cowboy boots...I wanted to be Sandra Bullock for the evening)and our stomachs growled. 
The highlights were seeing a Texas long horn, riding the pony (for Sadie), playing in baby land (for free) while Sadie and Dad rode some rides, riding the roller coaster over and over again with Sades, seeing Jack's face on the carousel, pig races, laughing that Jack was more interested in the buckets of water near the animals than the actual animals, and not when Jack got his finger caught in a turkey's beak. 
To top it all off, we got pulled over for running a yellow/red light on the way home. The cop asked us how the rodeo was and I said "well after this ticket...expensive!!!" He took pity on us after the kids woke up from flashing lights and the suddenly motionless vehicle (it was 10:45) and were screaming their bloody guts out. 
It was the first time I've welcomed such behavior because I wanted the cop to feel bad for #1 pulling me over for such a dumb reason and #2 for waking up the tired and sleepy kids. He gave me a warning and then practically followed us home afterwards. I maneuvered the car like I was taking my driving test back in 1996. As Sadie always says "red means stop, green means go, and yellow means hurry up." 
1 comment:
I had to laugh because John and I had the same experience at the Maryland fair last summer. We had the same reaction ;)
Happy six years!! You two are so great together.
Your quiche was beautiful! I think I need to make one tonight :)
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