A Day with Friends!

So many pictures, so little time! We were invited to go into town today with some friends (thank you Michelle!) and the kids had a great time! The city was putting this on, so there were several city vehicles out with various staff members to explain what the vehicle was used for and how. They also had vendors explaining various programs available in the area as well as a free lunch of hot dogs, chips and soda for anyone who came, with only a requested donation of canned goods in exchange. Well, we were more than happy to contribute some canned food in order to participate in all the things we did today!

I know it's probably a little hard to tell, but there is a small robot in front of the kids with a camera on the front. They can put it inside pipes throughout the city and use it to be able to see what's inside the pipes. You wouldn't believe some of the things that they said they've seen inside those pipes!

This table has various nozzles that go on the end of the hose on a sewage truck. Each of the nozzles sprays the water (at 2000 lbs of pressure) in different ways to accomplish different things. Considering they go on a sewage truck, we were really glad that they were cleaned before they were brought out for us to look at!
Face painting was available for all the kids so we stood in line for a little body art :) Kellen got a basketball on his cheek while Madison got a smiling heart on her arm.



This is a monstrous replica of a fish, with Kellen and Mickey sitting next to it. I thought it was just a really big thing to look at but when we got closer we were told that the kids could go inside! Well, we weren't about to pass that up!
I bet this doesn't look like the inside of any fish you've ever seen, but the kids thought it was great!
They had a small back-hoe (I think) that the kids could sit and get their picture taken in. The really fun thing is that they had a basketball suspended from the end of the bucket just like a wrecking ball and some of the adults were competing to see how quickly they could knock over a set of numbered bowling pins in numerical order! We stood and watched while one guy accomplished it in 38 seconds! Wow.

After some lunch we were going to head over to a nearby park but we were waylaid by some water works! You can see the fire hydrant in the background of this photo with the hose attached to it. That hose went out to a large metal pipe that was spraying the water across a large grassy area. Then it was running down onto the path where the kids had a blast playing in it!

This is (in order, left to right) Mickey, Kellen, and Sam sitting on the warm pavement after getting all wet.

This picture shows Kellen (blue t-shirt), Michelle, and Mickey running through the 'sprinkler'. I'm afraid I wasn't quite so brave and preferred to remain dry :)

Madison had so much fun, she didn't really want to leave the water at all. Once we got her heading towards the play equipment, though, she took off! I know this picture doesn't look like it, but Madison is actually leading the pack down the grass :)