Brave or insane...

I guess I was feeling brave tonight (or just ready for some holiday festivities) so the kids and I headed to downtown Abbotsford for the annual Christmas Tree Lighting. I have lived here all my life and never once have I been down there to see it. Tony is not home (hope you're enjoying Whistler) so I had to fly solo.

Anyways, I warned the kids that I had no idea what we should expect and if it wasn't any fun we would just come home.

There wasn't a whole lot there except a whole lot of people. I felt myself just constantly counting their little heads making sure I still had them all. They got some free hot chocolate, cookies and balloons and we watched Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive in an old antique fire truck. Taggart quite liked that but soon after that he crashed in the stroller while we waited for the big event - the tree lighting, of course. Cooper had his eye on some light-up Rudolph noses that some kids were walking around with but when we finally figured out where they came from they were sold out (thank goodness). The kids got bored and a little whiny and started to use their balloons as weapons on eachother so that's when I threatened leaving. We made it to the end and participated in the big countdown and watched the tree light up. Immediately after that Hudson and Reagan both lost their balloons into the sky which wasn't handled very well by either of them. Warning them repeatedly that if you don't keep them tied to your wrist they will float away apparently did no good. So now before we head to the car we need to fight our way back through the crowd to get two new balloons. But they don't have any more balloons so now I am sure it is really time to go home. Taggart, who slept through all of this is now starting to wake up and is not too happy that he isn't anywhere near his bed. A quick stop for one more cup of free hot chocolate and we head to the car.

As I am loading all of us into the van I am thinking "was that worth it?". Getting everyone ready to go, the worry of losing one of them, the tears over lost balloons and the countless times I heard "this is boring, when are they going to light this tree?" But as we drove home they all said, one by one, "thanks Mom - thanks for taking us - a little boring but still really fun". So the answer is "yes", it was worth it.