Oktoberfest 2009

I gotta say - as much as I whine about being "stuck" downtown - living here definitely has its perks. Tonight we randomly found ourselves at "The Midpoint Music Festival" on Fountain Square where MTV was taping "Taking the Stage"- and we were enjoying Graeters ice cream for dinner - and Josie was splashing in the fountain and playing air guitar to a band of pre-teen rockers who blew everyone away. (Seriously, check the "Trouble with Boys" website and scroll down to their video. They're adorable.)
AND - last weekend OKTOBERFEST (second in size only to Munich) was right in our backyard. So, as I say A LOT, there are worse places to be "stuck". Here are some photos from our afternoon celebrating our inner-German.
Here's Josie with her "Weiner Dog" balloon animal that she absolutely could not believe that she got to take home!

This is actually during "The Chicken Dance" (another Cincy tradition) - which Louie did a stellar job of performing with Josie on his back. (Yes, there is video that I will only share with his permission.)
And here are the scenes from the "Berry Go Round" aka "Josie's first spinny-ride" (post GIANT-pretzel).

Trying to convince her this will be fun... She's feeling a little bit skeptical (and holding on before the ride even begins)...

"Weeeeee....this is fun"... "Umm...wait...what's happening?" "I feel funny..."

"Why is everything spinning?"

"Is it over? ''Everything is still spinning..."

Not gonna lie, there was a minute there when I was sure she was going to "spill" giant German pretzel all over that giant berry. And to those of you wondering, we actually didn't spin the wheel, we just rode around in the giant circle. All in all, it was fun but she definitely didn't beg to do it again.And we'll just call this last one: "Maybe we should've been focusing more on what Josie was doing and less on taking the photo" because as you can see - we're smiling away and Josie has her mouth wrapped around the wheel that's been touring the globe - one county fair and festival out a time. All together now.... "Ewwww!"
I'll end with a video of Josie enjoying her balloon dog once we were home. I was so bummed that I missed the LOL moment when Josie pulled on the dog the wrong way and the whole balloon animal unraveled into one long piece. I thought she was going to cry, but she just looked at me with a huge smile and said "Look Mommy, I made a snake all by myself!" While I was lamenting that I didn't capture that on video, this transpired - which is even better. We just love her imagination & creativity! Enjoy!