Cherry Blossom Festival

Beginning about April 1st of every year, Jackson starts asking me "When is it going to be March again so we can go to The Cherry Blossom Festival?" To say that my little boy loves The Pinkest Party on Earth is a gross understatement. He looks forward to it with such joy every year. If you gave him the choice between it and Christmas morning, I'm really not sure which one he would pick :) So, of course, we have spent every waking moment that we can enjoying the many wonderful things the festival has to offer. We are sad that this will be our next to last Cherry Blossom here in Macon, but my friends here can rest assured that this is one event we will be back for every year...no matter where we end up on the map :) Here are the pics so far from our week of Cherry Blossom fun.

We couldn't miss the pink pancake breakfast
A ride on the roller coaster
Face painting

Luke is obsessed with rocks. Wherever we are, he finds rocks and carries them around. You'll notice in the pictures that he doesn't let go of them often :) Couldn't you just eat him up?
Luke and his Kikye
On the obstacle course...a new addition this year and a favorite of Jackson's

Down the slide
Luke wasn't too sure about the rides at first
Enjoying a slushie at the sea lion splash
Stella, Rose, and Kitty

Where else can you see a sea lion conga line?
A sweet moment with Chief (and his rocks)
A giant anaconda...gross
I was glad Jackson opted to pet the alligator with it's mouth taped shut instead of the snake
It wouldn't be a fair without a balloon animal

Chick-Fil-A turns their ice cream pink for Cherry Blossom...always a special treat
Luke finally started to enjoy the rides on the second day
Clutching his rock while riding in the jeep with "Jazzy"

Ok, now I have to tell a story (if you're still with me). Jackson has wanted nothing more than to ride the ferris wheel at the festival ever since we started going 3 years ago. You have to be 42" tall to ride. Instead of trying to explain that to him (or deal with him asking every day to measure him and see if he was 42" tall yet), we decided to tell him that you had to be 4 years old to ride the ferris wheel...thinking that at the rate he was growing he would surely be 42" by 4. If you know Jackson, you know that he doesn't forget a thing. The day of his 4th birthday, December 22, he told me "Yeah! Now I can ride the ferris wheel at Cherry Blossom Festival!" So the first day of the festival, we went straight to the ferris wheel. It wasn't even open yet because we were there early for pink pancakes, but we went up to the 'you have to be this tall' sign to check. He stood up so proud and we all cheered like a bunch of fools as we realized he was tall enough...or so we thought.

After our pink pancakes settled, we bought our tickets and went straight to the ferris wheel. Brad marched him up the ramp all ready to get on and the carnival man pulls out a different measuring stick, holds it up to Jackson, and says no, you can't get on. Talk about devastating! Well, truthfully, Jackson wasn't all too upset...it was really me, Brad, Chief, and Kikye that were heartbroken. We talked to Jackson, changed the age limit to 5, and he happily went off to ride the roller coaster.

Well, we weren't going to give up on our baby's dream that easily. Then next time we went back, we made sure Jackson wore his cowboy boots with the heel, and taught him how to stand up extra, extra tall :)