Lantern Fest

Donna bought tickets for the entire family to attend this year's Lantern Fest which was held in Tooele as a birthday gift to Jaina and last big family hoorah before she leaves on her mission next week. Despite a lot of complaining from mainly the men in the family I think everyone ended the night glad that they went. We made sure to thank Donna for the experience and the night we had. Addie especially loved it. They had face painting, slides, Disney princesses, a mechanical bull and plenty of food. They also had long lines but that's something that doesn't really bother me. I've known for a long time now that Addie has a real fear of heights and on Saturday her aunts found out about that little fact. Jaina took Addie up the inflatable slide which had super steep steps and Addie froze in fear. I'm really proud of her for going through with it though and going down the slide even if she did hang on for dear life to her aunt. I admire that little girl of mine so much. I'm starting to see some of myself in Addie as she's getting older. We both have desires to step out of our comfort zones and I can't help but feel proud every time she succeeds in doing it. I should take more lessons from her because I tend to let fear get in my way more times than not. :) She didn't like the slide, but she did it. She likes talking about it but given the choice she wouldn't do it again and that's okay because she at least gave it a chance. She absolutely loved all of the princesses she saw. She walked right up to Moana and gave her a hug, She liked Princess Belle and Rapunzel. She didn't know who Sleeping Beauty was but thought she was pretty. I'm getting really excited to see how she'll like going to Disneyland later this year. Something else she was really excited about was the face painting station with her cousins Jacob, Brooklyn, Jayden and Georgia. Unfortunately for her though I'm her mom and I am not a fan of face paint. I did allow her to get something on her hand. She chose a pink heart and she's still talking today about how much she loved that heart and it's already been three days since she's had it. When it came time to do the lanterns we decided it would be best to watch from the entrance way instead of in the field by the fire pits where we had camped most of the evening. It was the best idea because of the view we got. It was also the safest idea because what you can't see in the pictures is that the same amount of lanterns that were being released into the air were also falling down back to the ground. It also worked out for us because we were able to head straight to our car without having to wait in lines to get out. We were able to get home before midnight and the kids went straight to bed with ease. Overall even though we headed into the night with a bit of hesitation it turned out to be spectacular. Thanks Donna.