Carnival!

This past week-end was CARNIVAL. This is an annual event that everyone with little kids looks forward to. Last year, the theme was Country Fair. You can check out the first post (of many) from last year's event here. If you remember, Ben had his face painted like Spiderman.

This year, our friends came from Goroka and stayed with us for the week-end. Alex and Kelley have three kids- Haley, Graham and Nate. Ben really gets along well with their kids, so the week-end was a blast.

Kelley had the great idea of bringing capes for the kids. So, this year, Ben wore a Superman cape and had his face painted like a tiger. Oh, and this year's theme was "Game On!" All the booths had to do with all the classic board games. Here are pictures of Ben at the Pictionary Face Painting Booth:

Above: Ben wasn't so sure of the paint this year...hence the scrunched up face. But, he relaxed after a while. Below: Here is a picture of Ben's friend Graham. He got a tiger face, too.

Below is a picture of Haley. She got a butterfly face:

Almost finished:

It took a while for Ben to make normal faces again. Supposedly it feels really weird as the paint dries:

I wanted a picture with my little tiger, too:

(34 Weeks Pregnant)

I convinced Ben to growl with me:

After face painting, we stood in line for cotton candy. Even now, if you ask Ben his favorite part of carnival, he'll say it was getting the cotton candy:

While in line, we got a picture of the tiger boys together.

There were mini-games that the kids could do, too. Here is a picture of Ben playing mini golf. See, doesn't he look like a Benke? So serious! On my Benke side of the family, we take miniature golf VERY seriously.

More pictures:

After lunch, we took advantage of the Kids' Korner. Think "babysitting". We paid 1 kina (about 50 cents) for a 1/2 hour block of babysitting. While the kids were there enjoying puppet shows and playing with toys, we headed over to the jazz concert. The kids here are really talented. It was fun to eat dessert while listening to them preform. I got a cheesecake and Caleb got apple pie. Both are luxuries that you can't usually just buy here in PNG. So, it was nice to not have to make these desserts from scratch just to eat them.

Here is a picture of Alex and Kelley. They joined us for jazz music and dessert.

Let's not forget about the infamous homemade ferris wheel. This a must-do for carnival. Last year, I really enjoyed going on it and flipping. This year, not so much! I didn't even attempt to get this pregnant belly on the wheel. This year, Ben got to go with Caleb. He still did not LOVE it. Both he and Graham were a bit petrified. But, at least they didn't cry. But, they didn't grin, either. :)

All in all, it was a GREAT day. I got a little too sunburned, but that is my only complaint. I forgot to mention that this event was put on by the high schoolers. It was fun to see all of my girls working in the different booths and such. It is also a charity, where half of the proceeds were allocated to Lae Hospital. It's kind of sad to think that we might not be here for next year's carnival!