Children’s Festival
Each year the Manitouwadge Leisure Services department improves on their annual Children’s Festival and 2009 was no exception… It isn’t fancy to look at but I would challenge you to find a child d not enjoy themselves thoroughly or who isn’t dissapointed when they must leave!
This year the inflatables were bigger and better than ever before – the same ones Emeraude had enjoyed when we visited Pooh Fest in White River, ON two years ago. Emeraude’s favourite was an obstacle course with a 15 foot (estimation of measurements /distances is not my forte but I think that’s close) climbing wall/slide. It was supervised by Tessa Lanteigne, Lloyd White (my Lloyd), Matthew Budgell and Thomas Brand – all kids that Emeraude is quite fond of. With Lloyd & Matt being the ones actually on the peice – Lloyd helped kids up the climbing wall & Matt was up top ensuring they made it down the slide without incident – whe could not resits going on it over and over again!
She tried each of the inflatables at least once and also enjoyed a ring toss game where every child won a prize – Emeraude won a skipping rope and a candy bracelet (the latter is still in my purse), I was so impressed with how close she came with her attempts to ring the moose’s antlers and what a great sport she was when those attempts were unsucessful. They had a trailer full of beach sand again this year in which the kids could sit and dig for treasure – another favourite of Emeraude’s, she found a little dinosaur 🙂
Only one dissapointment for Emeraude (me too I guess) that there was no candy floss this yearl We did enjoy popcorn however and there were other snack available, we were just in the mood for junk 🙂
The arena proved to be more challenging for me than I expected and I was relieved when I saw Mom arrive. It worked out okay anyways as there was only 15 minutes left before they would shut down. I was really proud of Lloyd and how attentive he was, taking his supervisory position quite seriously and seeming to put the same effort into helping all the kids as he did with his own little sis – great job Lloyd! All the kids working there – the Leisure services department had rallied high school workers looking to get community service hours, something any child in an Ontario High School needs 40 of to graduate, and they were great – polite, kind, fun, attentive, responsible… they all seemed to treat the afternoon of volunteering with the same effort as I think they would have a paying job.
