Taylorsville Days with Levi

Levi and I spent a wonderful day yesterday with Jen and Larry Farnworth and their two boys Shea and Sam. (Backstory: Jen and I were introduced because Larry and my mom work together at Stampin' Up) Sam is exactly 14 days younger than Levi, but just a bit taller. I was very silly and didn't take any pictures until late at night. Only a couple of them worked at all, and I have learned a lesson: to take pictures earlier in the day and be sure to catch our 'playmates' and surroundings, as well as Levi.

We started the day with a parade through Taylorsville that began at 9am. Levi and I had a great time, especially because of the delightful company that had invited us. There was plenty of candy thrown out, but none of the boys was super quick or determined to get to it before it had been picked up. All things considered, though, Levi had more candy than he has ever had at one time in his life. He loved it! He was introduced to Nerds and salt-water taffy and he really liked the peanuts that were thrown out in bags by the Texas Roadhouse restaurant. There were a lot of politicians who rode by on cars and had signs asking for a vote. There were floats with candy and kids in costumes and pretty girls, i.e. Miss Taylorsville, etc. When the Murray float passed us, we cheered and said, "We love Murray!" Jen agreed and told us that they had almost bought a house in Murray instead of the one they're in in Taylorsville.

After the parade, we changed diapers in our cars and grabbed snacks and headed to the car show. The cars that were shown were rusty classics, refurbished classics, and highly decorated newer cars (decorated with flames, etc.) Some of the refurbished classic models had their hoods open so that we could see the engine and the doors open so we could get a good look at the interior. One of the classics made me think of "Foolish Carriage" in Cheaper by the dozen and another reminded me of the car Mom describes having taken family road trips in as a child. She tells us that nobody had carseats and her little sister Ann would often  barrel over the front seat and drop like a bomb on everyone in the back.

By then, the boys were all tired and ready for a nap. Levi and I came home and Levi totally dozed off in the car. We got home just a bit after 12. His nap doesn't usually start until 1pm, and he never makes the carseat-to-bed transfer very well, so I woke him up when we got here and gave him something to drink. He perked up a bit and ate lunch and played for a while. He started yawning at about 2 and went down for a nap, very happily, at 2:30. He slept until 5, hallelujah!

We met the Farnworths for dinner at Rancherito's and then headed over to the park for the carnival and fireworks. Larry's mom was waiting for us there and we set up blanket and stuff, stayed for a bit, bought some glowing swords from a vendor, then went over to the carnival to see if the boys wanted to try anything. Levi was very sad to leave his "light saber", 

(Who has a green light saber? I'll have to ask Nathan.)

(That's Jen on the blanket behind Levi.)

but managed to enjoy the inflated carnival quite a bit. Larry took the boys down the bag slide a couple of times, 

Larry is the man at the top of the slide with a little boy in each arm. Levi is the boy on the left (Larry's right arm) and Sam is the boy on the other side. I was glad Larry was willing to take Levi because I couldn't maintain my balance on the inflated toy, much less climb the stairs to get up to the slide. In case you can't see it, Levi is having a ball.

Next, we had them try the Fun House (just a little two room thing with a little slide and inflated clowns, not scary at all (I hope)). Levi had a great time until I poked my head in for a picture and he caught sight of me. Oh,well. When time was up in there, we had a couple tickets left and went down the big slide again before heading back to Sharon and the blankets.

Fire works started at about 9:50. They were pretty, but loud enough to scare Levi quite entirely. He hid in my chest, peeking out every so often to see the show then ducking away again. I thought maybe he fell asleep, but as soon as the show was over, he was perky and friendly and didn't seem at all tired. He didn't fall asleep on the way back to the Farnworth home, or even in the car on the way back to our house, even though it was about 11:30 when we got home. He cried for his light saber, which I made him leave downstairs, for about 7 minutes and then just dropped off to sleep. Very tired boy.