Fear of Flying

I struggled mightily with the order in which the next two posts should go up: do I want to put my favorite pictures up first, and then the terribly embarrassing video? Or do I want to go with the hysterically funny video clip, and then the bittersweetly lovely pictures of the kids looking adorable? In the end, chronological order won out (even though, technically, everything is out of sequence vis-à-vis everything else -- the pictures you are seeing today were taken on Tuesday, and the pictures you will see tomorrow were taken on Thursday, and the pictures you have already seen? Were taken both before AND after both Tuesday AND Thursday. But as I said when I saw Pulp Fiction for the first time, lo these many years ago: Non-linear storytelling kicks ass.)

So. Anyway. On Tuesday night during our vacation, we went to Fantasy Island Amusement Park, which you might remember from last year's trip to the shore. This year we went earlier in the night, because we knew it was there (prior to last year, I swear to God I had never heard of the place, even though My Anonymous Mother swears up and down that my Aunt Kim used to take her kids there). It's not really a dress-up place, but I got Shae all dolled up anyway, because I had packed a little skirt outfit for her, and by God she was going to wear it someplace.

See what I mean about the pictures looking like they were taken for a catalog? Anyway. Things started out well on the boat ride ...

... and were okay on the train ride ...

... but we did not do so well on the traffic jam ride ...

... although we did better on the honey bee ride (you will just have to take my word for it).

BUT. Things really went off the rails on the ferris wheel. Oh, dear sweet Jeebus, my arch-nemesis the ferris wheel!

See that picture of me, holding the video camera? That's going to be important in a minute or so. Shae did great on the ferris wheel ...

... but, um ... okay, let me just put it this way and then cut to the clip. I'll be totally honest here: I am deathly afraid of heights. DEATHLY. Well, not heights, exactly, but falling to my death. I can handle airplanes for some reason -- I love to fly, actually, although I do have trouble with take-offs and landings -- but I really, really don't like being in high, open places because I can picture in my head all the terrible things that can go wrong and I can't stop it and ... well, even though the audio commentary on this clip is all me, having a nervous breakdown in front of my 3-year-old on a stupid ferris wheel at a perfectly lovely kiddie park at the shore, it's still pretty funny. I can admit that.

Next time G is getting ferris wheel duty. Shae's going to be on her own with the roller coasters, though.