Wrist Band Night & the Fourth of July

Happy 4th of July !!! We hope you have an amazing celebration of our nation’s birthday.

We spent Wednesday night at the Webster Groves Lions Club’s Fourth of July carnival.  St. Louis is experiencing unexpectedly cool weather and the night was absolutely perfect.  Small clouds with a cool breeze - a beautiful evening.

The carnival runs through Saturday, but on Wednesday and Thursday night, the Lions sell wristbands for $25.  The wristbands give you unlimited access to the rides and it seems like every year, they introduce one new ride for even more excitement.

This year, Amany’s good friend Maral is visiting from Chicago, along with her two children.  We got the chance to show them how we celebrate in Webster Groves and all the kids had a blast.

The Nemesis 360 is a horrible ride that spins you all around, turns you upside down and flips you back again.  Ibrahim and his friend Sean went on the ride 4 times in a row.  I’m not sure how they didn’t come out feeling like a piece of twisted salt water taffy.

The usual favorites were there, too - the bumper cars, the mini-roller coaster, the carousel.  The little kids had a lot of fun climbing the inflatable Tiger and hitting each other with the inflatable baseball bats.

Ismail and Yusuf headed out with their friends almost as soon as we arrived and I barely saw them.  Somehow, I went from supervising Ibrahim and one friend to having a pack of 6 fourth-graders-to-be running all over the place.

Wrist Band Night is truly one of the best nights of the year.  But as I walked around yesterday, I saw a bunch of friends and kids that I had not seen much of during the past 12 months.  It seemed like all the boys and girls that I knew from Clark Elementary and from around Webster had grown a ton this year.  It made me a bit nostalgic and sad thinking that we are all getting older.

It seems like yesterday that I was taking Ismail on the little kid train.

But it has been a great year.  Have a fantastic 4th of July !!!!

Thanks for reading.

Jim

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