Boys just wanna have fun!

 Last Saturday, Mark's family met at the local zoo and park for a reunion. This is a huge group of people, with all the brothers and sisters that can make it, their children, and their children's children. (Sound familiar, Danes clan?) I took the boys to the zoo on my own before wandering over to meet up with family. There are no pictures of the zoo fun, because it was pretty much pouring down rain for most of it and I wasn't getting the camera out to get it all wet.

 But, on our way to the park section, we ran into Grandma W and some of the other grandkids in the "fun zone", a little group of rides for kids. She bought a slew of tickets and off they went! William and Daniel wanted to ride the train. The two little guys in front are their cousins, Alex and Corwin, also brothers.

"Look Mommy! I'm riding in a train!"

Some of the older kids were brave and chose to ride The Octopus. This is one of those rides that spin your car around as the ride goes around as well as up and down. Nathan had no clue that's what it would do and screamed. A lot. 

Oren with another cousin, Spencer. They're only 1 1/2 years apart, and love to spend time together. In fact, when Oren and Spencer saw each other at the park, it was "Oren!!!" - run... "Spencer!!!" - run...  

Nathan, cousin Jonathon, and cousin Brooklyn waiting their turn to get off this crazy thing!

Grandma ended up with 2 tickets left, and since there weren't enough to go around, the kids voted to give them to the youngest, who happened to be Daniel. So he opted to ride on the big horse. By himself. I couldn't sit with him without a ticket so I had to trust the ride operator to keep close to him. She strapped him on which made me feel a lot better, and we told him to hold on tight. It's not that the merry-go-round is fast, but we were worried that he'd get excited, let go, and tip over the horse. 

He did a great job holding on, and wasn't scared at all!

Then we wandered over to the family pavilion, getting there just before it started raining again. Which it did off and on the rest of the day. Kids were soaked through, but had a great time. And some of us even managed a hilarious game of volleyball in the slippery wet grass!