Meeting Elsa

Tonight was our Fall Festival at the church, and out of the last ten days or so - and forecasted over the next several days - the only rain we got was... today.  Can you believe that?  But the blessing is this - the rain came in, and left by about 1:00 pm.  So we stayed dry!

So Madison could go to the Fall Festival this year.  We usually don't like her not getting enough sleep, but this was a special occasion.  And it was made even more special by a few things - like a tall, tall slide.  And Queen Elsa.

This is our friend Camille.  She's just recently joined us at KidPak, and we had no idea how great of an Elsa she was.  She actually does this for parties on Saturdays, and for us at KidPak, she volunteered to take pictures with the children.  They were so excited to see her tonight!  Madison was too, as you can see in the photo above.  Although Madison sees a little of the behind the scenes at KidPak, she still knew that Camille here makes an excellent Elsa.  Madison even brought our autograph book so it could be signed.  Camille, or rather Elsa, happily signed it for her.  

As you can also see in the photo above, Madison wore her cowgirl outfit.  This was so she could go on all the rides and slides and inflatables there were, and still be comfortable.  That sort of activity doesn't work out so well in a princess dress.  

Amazingly, Madison first decided to conquer this 35 ft. slide.  This thing was really, really high.  It took a while just to climb the stairs to get to the top of this inflatable slide.  And she was pretty fearless going down it.  It's the kind of slide that is so high up that your stomach sort of drops as you fall the first ten feet or so.  And you don't feel like you're quite on the slide so much, but rather instead falling downward.  It's that sort of slide, and yet Madison was wanting to do it a second time.  Again, she was fearless!

We did other games, like trying to knock each other off inflatable pedestals with huge foam poles.  Madison won that contest, of course.  And she got to do pretty much all there is to do at a typical Fall Festival, jumping in obstacle courses, throwing footballs and sliding down towering slides.  She had a blast, and then it was time to head to the rooms, where there was free candy.  And lots of it.  We give away so much free candy at each of these events - it's amazing!

As you could imagine, the remainder of the day involved planning such an event, setting things up and so forth.  In fact, planning takes place weeks before - today was just a lot of lugging around of pumpkins and hay bales and decor, including that decorative backdrop Daddy had commissioned for the Elsa photo shoot.  We had hundreds of photos with Elsa and that backdrop. 

But there was plenty of other things to do, such as hay rides, dance parties and general chaos.

Madison loved it.  She got there earlier, as Daddy was here as well to set things up.  Therefore, Madison had early access to a lot of the slides and inflatables.  She ran around, ready to take them all on.  She was pretty excited!

We got home pretty late, and everyone was ready for bed.  It was a great evening, although we had a few hiccups here and there.  All in all, it was great though.  We learned some more lessons towards next year, and everyone walked away with free candy and a good time on the field.  What's not to love?