Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Williamson Road Junefest
Every year Vanessa's school has had its annual "Junefest", an annual charitable gathering to help raise extra funds for the school, which Vanessa in particular had been looking forward to for a while. So we got there about noontime, and was pleasantly surprised by the range of activities that were spread out over the whole of it extensive playground.

Bought $20 worth of tickets, which, as it turned out, would last us the whole afternoon. The girls had a blast, spending a ticket apiece on such things as face painting, getting their nails painted, and decorating (and then wolfing down) cupcakes with loads of sprinkles, after first covering them with icing. Then on to the 2-story jumping castle (with built-in bouncing slide), and then to dunk some hapless teacher (or brave volunteer) in the dunk tank. Everybody got the chance to dunk the guy, who I noticed was looking pretty chill but still of good humour at the end of the day.

Then on to a bunch of games: knock down tin cans, bowling down pins, snagging paperclip-bedecked fish with a magnetized rod and reel -- all of which they won prize vouchers for, getting them funky erasers, toy cars and the like. Only had a couple of tickets left by this point, so we went back and got a couple more cupcakes to decorate and then munch.

Near the end of the day, I made my way over to the used book and CD stall. Wasn't expecting much to be there at that point, but came away with a number of fun books for the girls, and picked up several CDs for myself for a tooney a pop: R.E.M.'s Reveal, Into the Labyrinth by Dead Can Dance and the I Am Sam soundtrack, which contains nothing but Beatles covers by contemporary artists I like (such as Sarah McLachlan, Ben Folds, The Wallflowers, Rufus Wainright and Grandaddy).

There were several points in the day when I wished Erika could have been here. But today was very much a "Daddy day", as Erika was playing her trumpet in two concerts over the course of the day, including a lesson in between. So I took plenty of pictures to help make up for it.

Afterwards we headed over to a local restaurant for a proper meal, then to rent (and return) a couple fresh kid videos for the week. Then home. It was about 5pm when we got back.

I crawled upstairs soon after I got home to have a quick cat nap, both girls happily ensconced watching the Barbie "Princess and the Pauper" DVD they had wanted. Woke up about an hour later, somewhat startled not only that I had dozed so long, but also that I had been allowed to sleep that long without interruption. I went downstairs and found the reason why: both girls fast asleep on the couch. I hauled both girls up to their beds.

I consider that a successful day. ;-)