Ropes and Fires and Monkeys, OH MY!

Ahhh, Spring Break. Nothing like a bunch of crazy college kids gathering together on an overly crowded beach while consuming large amounts of alcohol and wearing practically nothing. So, what's a mom of 4 small children to do when this time of year comes around??
A. Stay inside and tightly close all of the blinds.
B. Take a two month vacation to a state that is not quite so popular...like Minnesota.
C. Join in on the fun

Well, we chose C. A couple weekends ago we decided to head over the the local beach/pier. It. was. packed. HOWEVER....large crowds bring large amounts of entertainment, mostly in the form of street performers.

We watched an escape artist. He was 16 years old. He was mildly entertaining. He had a couple of guys from the audience strap him into a straight jacket. The most exciting part of his show was that he called Kyle up out of the audience to hold the microphone for him while he was being tied up.


The next guy we saw did scary things like juggle swords and hatchets and things that were on fire. He called Kyle up too, but Kyle didn't want to go anywhere near this guy. I can't blame him, he was a little freaky. He did the whole fire spitting thingy. (Or whatever it's called.)

The whole time we watched this guy, I just kept thinking, "Holy crap! Didn't his mom ever teach him not to play with fire??" and more importantly "Why in the world am I letting my little psycho 3 year old watch this??" I could just see him coming home and trying to figure out how to blow fire out of his crazy little mouth. I could totally picture him running around the house with his curls ablaze, begging for money.

Evan's favorite part was actually the little monkey. It was a little capuchin monkey. They had him there on this little leash (I wonder if I could walk Evan around on one of those little leashes bumming money off of people. He's cute enough, don't ya think??) You could hold out some money (anything from a penny to whatever) and the monkey would come up, take the money, give it a kiss "for good luck" and then drop it in his little tip bucket. You could pay ten bucks or more and have the monkey actually sit on your lap and they would take a Polaroid for you. Ummm, no thanks. Knowing my luck the monkey would bite me and give me the plague. I would prefer my family to remain plague free, thank you very much.



Mikaily saw a little girl getting her face painted, so of course she HAD to get hers painted. Because, we all know that if she left the beach without having a flower painted on the side of her face, she would DIE!


That's kind of a scary picture of her. She looks a little possessed. Oh well, she fit right in with all the other crazies on the beach.

Laney enjoyed hanging out on Daddy's shoulders. She kept groovin' every time the music would play.



We headed down to the water after taking in all of the street performers. We had to herd the children around the bum that was sleeping in the sand. It was a great "stay in school" teaching moment. (No offense to those who are homeless.... I know that some are just in unfortunate circumstances...not that anyone that is homeless is going to be reading my blog....)

While the kids were splashing around, there was a guy that came along tring to strike it rish with his metal detector and offered the boys glow sticks (Mikaily was off somewhere, eating an ice cream cone with her Aunt). At first, I wasn't sure whether we should let the boys play with them or throw them into the ocean. Against my better judgement we let them take the glowing sticks from the stranger...they didn't end up being bombs or anything though...just plain old glow sticks. *shew*



Sorry that picture is so blurry.....

Crazy, drunk, college kids and crazies aside, it was pretty fun.