Friendship Circle: Day at the Fair

We are so lucky that we have a Friendship Circle chapter in our area!  For those of you who don't know what the Friendship Circle is: "The Friendship Circle exists to bring happiness and companionship to children and young adults with special needs by celebrating their uniqueness and individuality; to create renewed strength, comfort and peace of mind to the families of these special individuals; to foster the values of altruism, compassion and acceptance among teen volunteers and to heighten community awareness, sensitivity and encourage a sense of responsibility and involvement. It is our belief that every person is precious and capable of love, connection and friendship."  They partner typical teenagers with children with special needs and it gives our kids a chance to be a regular kid having fun with another kid instead of their parent/teacher/therapist.  Sweet Pea hasn't attended many of their events as she is still at the low end of the age spectrum that they work with, but I know that she will attend a lot more events over the next few (okay...many) years ahead.

Today a fair in a nearby city opened up their kids zone area to the Friendship Circle an hour before it opened to the public.  After Daddy and Mommy played with both girls for awhile, Sweet Pea was paired up with two wonderful high school girls and they took her on numerous slides, bounce houses, velcro walls, reptile exhibit, etc.  Sweet Pea had never met these girls before, but she took to them quite quickly and had a blast.  She didn't even look around for Mommy or Daddy!

This may be photo overload...but I just don't care. :-)

Angel got to play too:

And boy is she a daredevil!  She would climb up the slide side and fall down the ladder side...again...and again...and be laughing the whole time!

Daddy took both his girls up this slide a few times before we learned that they could both do it by themselves.  We would go behind them just to keep them safe from a serious fall and from the other kids that would be rushing up behind them, but they were both able to navigate the ladder.

Don't let this picture fool you, Angel was having a blast on the slide:

Sweet Pea preferred to be escorted down, but loved it also:

Here are her high school friends that were helping her maneuver another climbing wall:

Unrelated, but I love beach volleyball and we saw USA's gold medalist Kerry Walsh with her son enjoying the fair as well:

After Sweet Pea's time with her friends was over we tried out the petting zoo.  She stuck her hand into the cage of rabbits!  When Daddy picked one up she enjoyed petting it and even held it for a second.  While she didn't pet anything else, she was at least tolerant of the little goats, chickens, ducks, and sheep that were there. 

And although this photo doesn't go with the fair per se, this is what happens to Angel after a long morning at the fair and then Daddy forgetting to put her down for a nap while Mommy was out playing softball.  She fell asleep leaning on the ottoman of their rocking chair!