Carnival

Gia absolutely loves carnivals and rides. The weather this past week has been spotty--they predicted thunderstorms nearly every day. So, we didn't tell her we were planning to take her to a local carnival until the very last minute, just in case we got rained out.   An hour before we were going to go Gia came up to me and said, "Mommy, let's go to Yadi's house. Not now. Later."   I told her that Yadi wasn't home but there was somewhere fun we could go. She looked at me and waited. "Do you want to go to a carnival?" I asked. "A carnival! I can go on rides and see the animals!" She was so excited. It was awesome. From the moment we got there, until the moment we left, Gia was in rare form. She was wild with anticipation. Rides! Games! Food! Animals! She didn't know which way to turn and was just buzzing with energy.   We went to the petting zoo first.

Then she asked to ride a pony. 

(Side note: This isn't the first time Gia has been on a pony. She rode one at a farm in Florida when she was about 20 months old and she wasn't too sure if she liked it or not. Then last year she rode a pony at the NJ Meadowlands Fair and liked it more than the first time.  About a week ago, out of no where, Gia announced, "I've always wanted to ride a horse."  It was so funny at the time. Ever since, she's been talking about riding a horse, hence the extreme happiness in the photos you're about to see!)

Finally, she went on some rides.

Her favorite ride was this huge bouncy slide thing. It was 3 tickets for 3 rides. We gave the carnival lady our last 9 tickets and just let Gia go up and down a bunch of times. She was in heaven.