carousel season

i think we might stop calling this season spring, and start calling it carousel season. spring seems official when the carousel at ella's deli (the highly visible bedecked and bedazzled "deli" at the corner of johnson and east washington) takes down the protective plastic tarp and winter boards and opens for carousel rides. the kids watch keenly with every late winter/early spring drive past that carousel, waiting waiting ever so impatiently for signs that the carousel is opening.

well, it's open. and we rode it immediately. (within 24 hours of opening, which is essentially immediately).

ramona and james are animals of consistency. she rides the pink horse. he rides the black horse.




and then, just when we thought we'd had enough, 3 days after the ella's deli carousel ride, we stumbled upon the newly-opened-for-spring carousel at the zoo! they went bananas. totally bananas with joy.

ramona has a few animals she likes to ride on the zoo carousel, but james is insistent open the gorilla (a large ape with whom he has a very emotional love/hate/fear relationship, mostly due to a traumatic experience at the willy street parade in 2013).



and then, a week later, we went to the zoo with our little buddy wren and her mommy Sara. another carousel ride, another gorilla ride. ramona bravely took whichever animal happened to be next to wren's choice (equally as insistent as james, wren had to have the horse, which is really a mule).




it's so nice to have carousel season back!