High Street at Nampa Nights

One of the biggest crowds to ever hit Nampa Nights is on the evening that the Mayor's band, High Street, takes the stage. Tonight was that night. There wasn't a great deal for me to do since Dale and Rob set up fairly early and the band brings their own front-of-house tech, so I took the kids and went to the fountain.

The impromptu sleep-over from the night before turned into an all day party that carried over into Nampa Nights. We don't get to spend very much time with J and E so it was nice to get to see them for a big chunk of time. The girls had no problem getting wet- they ran through the fountain right away.

I don't know if the boys were too cool, or what, but they sat on the side lines and watched awhile.

Before too long, though, the heat got the best of them and they slowly made their way into the water:

With a little encouragement, it wasn't long before they were almost as wet as the girls!

Gloria loves going to the fountain on Thursday nights:

Lucy was not impressed with the fountain:

These two had a contest to see who could stand the heat on their feet the longest. Zach was the judge, but I think Gloria won anyway:

We had to sit across the street from the park because all dogs are banned from Nampa Nights this year. We'll have to plan differently next week. . .

These two fell in love:

Lori brought Lauren and Henry with her and they had fun hanging out with the kids. The older girls played a leader-follower type game where Henry and Lauren had to copy everything they did:

And then the tables were turned! It was pretty cute watching Lauren take charge of the big girls. She was pretty pleased with herself:

I'm not real sure what the point of this picture is. . .

. . . or this one. . .

I have loved Henry since the day he was born. But. . . he has never seen fit to give me the time of day. It's not that he doesn't like me, he just doesn't really acknowledge me. The other Ritchie kids like me, so it's kind of been a goal of mine to win this one over. I found the key tonight-- pretzels. If I had only known that this was the key to his heart, I would have showered him with pretzels a long time ago. I had a bag of pretzels in front of me and he couldn't sit close enough to me so he kept standing up and scooting his little butt closer and closer. I motioned to Zach to take a picture of this beautiful moment:

We truly bonded. It was very special.