downtown tree lighting ceremony

one busy night, while paul was out-of-town, some friends invited us to the downtown garland tree-lighting ceremony. we'd never gone before (or really knew about it), but it sounded like fun, and was something else to do when daddy wasn't home... if you know what i mean...

anyways, we headed downtown, managed to find a parking place (miracle!!!), and ran into our friends almost immediately (another miracle!).

i did bring my camera, though my pictures weren't all that exciting, but i figure i'm so far behind on blogging, the fact that i'm throwing anything up at all should be great! (you're welcome to my fans).

so, without further ado, the pictures:

this was far and away the most exciting event of the night, they had a little snow/ice hill and innertubes to ride down it. the kids all had a blast riding, the girls each went twice, malachi was getting pretty tired by the second time we got through the line, so he stayed in the stroller then. i got some pics of all the kids, but the speed and lighting were hard for my limited skills, so this is the only one where it really turned out. malachi was the funniest, he sat up straight, i think cross-legged in the center, and stared straight ahead, but he still claimed to love it when he was done!

random picture of the kids excited about something... ps, i thought it was supposed to be cold that night, but it was actually really pleasant, go figure.

we thought we found a pretty good spot to watch the lighting, the tree was in the square just below this retaining wall, and it was perfect until about 3 minutes to 7 when tons of adults suddenly decided to stand right where the kids were playing and essentially blocked our view completely. :P

we found our other friends too, amelia is actually about afton's age, but one of rayna's best friends, i love it that the kids still mostly all play together!

see, once people left, our vantage-point was great!

and i'm pretty sure we all had a great time, the kids didn't even complain when we went straight home afterwards and right to bed!