Rockford Start of Summer Celebration

Every year we go to a "festival" in downtown Rockford. There is a parade, a carnival, food booths, crafters booths (selling stuff), and a kids' crafts table (for free!). Of course, I forgot my camera, so you will have to forgive the quality, all the picture were taken with my camera phone. (Thank goodness for that phone!)
We started out by going to the parade. Samantha really seemed to enjoy it! We was waving with her whole hand turning instead of her hand folding, it was cute. We decided she was practicing for Miss America. ;)The local fire department lets the kids dress up in their equipment......and shoot the water hose and do a "tug of war" type game with a ball hanging from a rope over their heads. Marc won his game!After we got done with the fire hose we went over to the carnival. We quickly discovered that it cost a young fortune to do anything. Each ticket was $1. Each ride was 3-4 tickets a person. We told Marc he could do 1 ride. He chose the fun house. So, of course Daddy had to go with him, so we paid $6 for Marc to go in the fun house. That is ridiculous! They also had midway games. We let him choose 1 game to play, because, again, he chose something that 1 of had to do with him. he wanted to do the game where you spray water in the hippos mouth and see who get to the top first. He would a really cool tie to wear. :)
After he "rode" his "ride" and played his game, we went to get something to eat. Again, we paid a lot of money, but it was ok, we were having fun.
We went over to the kids crafts table. It is sponsered each year by the local toy store. Last year they some really cool crafts (that we later went to the store to by some of the kits). This year they had t-shirts they could decorate (for free!). There were Do-A-Dot stampers (washable bingo daubers) and fabric markers. So Marc made one for himself and I made one for Samantha. They both turned out really cute. I brought them home and washed them, after all they had been sitting around in boxes and passed around by a bunch of different hands). I took them out of the wash and all the washable Do-A-Dot stampers designs had washed off. :( Luckiliy I have regular bingo daubers in the house. We will just get to have fun decorating then a second time. :)
After some crafting we were headed back to the car when we ran into Dee Jay the Clown. We was making balloon figures for kids. Samantha was memorized by him. She just stared at his as he made the things for them.Marc wanted him to make aballoon snocone. He said he didn't know how to make that but he did know how to make his a snowman instead. He said he was "the only kid today to get a snowman. So not to go telling everyone." ;) He made Samantha flower bracelet. She wasn't sure what to think of it at first. She eventually let us put it on her arm. But then we were too worried she was going to pop it she was playing with it so much.It was a very fun day!