Is West Seattle just the bomb or what? If you recall, I went to an Art in Nature festival there at the end of summer which was whimsical, magical, and very greenwood. Today, the kids and I went to the Fauntleroy Fall Festival. I wouldn't call it whimsical or magical, I'd call it a nice balance of low tech fun--hands-on kid craft, face painting by teenagers, with some fancier bonus items--a climbing wall, a bouncy house, and pony rides.

It was completely free.

It was extremely well staffed with helpful friendly volunteers.

All the activities were completely appropriate for my kids.

Wow! Oh, and David, normally a disaster at crowded noisy events, did extremely well. So, I was actually able to manage two kids without lots of tears or losing anybody.

Rose is now old enough that I could leave her in line for the climbing wall while I took David to the bouncy house. On the way back, David learned how to operate a rain barrel. it was pretty funny having the salesperson pitch David, but he loved turning all the spigots. This was Rose's first time attempting to climb. It was a great set up: harnesses, helmets, and some sort of piston device that lowered the kids slowly when they were ready to come down. It made me want to try climbing, and I'm afraid of heights.

So about all the amazing help. David was trying to paint a pumpkin and did a loud scary looking slow motion fall out of his chair. The Girl Scout leader standing behind me immediately pulled the chair out of the way, so I could grab him, and then started wiping all the paint off his hands, his face, his shirt, my shirt. He was fine, and I felt so helped. It turns out that's exactly what she was there to do, make the pumpkin painting go smoothly. We had cheerful people at every venue.

The pony ride line was too long, but otherwise, we climbed in the fire engine, played on the play equipment, made spiders, and admired the woman on stilts dressed as a bird. We had a great time.