Chinese Lanterns

I bought a Groupon for half-priced tickets to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Fair Park. When I bought the tickets, it said they expired January 20th. Soon after buying them, they sent an email saying that they in fact expired January 6th. That was pretty frustrating because I wouldn't have bought them with an expiration date so close to all the holidays. As it was, though, I was adamant that we would use that $19 I spent and tonight was the night.

Holy. Cow. There was some sort of incompetent parking person directly traffic and we sat forever never moving before we even reached the gate to get into the park! (I found this incredibly frustrating.) Once we finally made it to the gate, the parking attendant was moving at a snails pace. And then when we got parked and up to the entrance, there was a faux line created and it took us forever to realize they weren't even trying to go in so we finally jumped out of the line and went in. And then there were the tripods. I've never seen so many people stopping and setting up tripods and their cameras at a family event like this! That and smart phones and pads of all kinds, people stopping and taking pictures, just blocking the sidewalks everywhere. We had the boys in the stroller, so there were several moments where we couldn't do anything because we weren't able to go around. (Seth found this incredibly frustrating.)

Having said all that, it was cool and I AM glad we went (though I'm not sure Seth can say the same). Here are some pictures I was able to get.

I just love walking through lit archways... so soothing or something.

These ones were made with little pieces of colored glass or plastic whereas most everything else was made with thin fabric.

The big pink things opened and closed.

This dinosaur freaked Austin out. Looking at this picture (and knowing that it was both roaring and moving) I don't know why I didn't see that one coming!

Some of their heads moved back and forth and Austin was afraid of these as well. 

Again with the lit archways... ahhhhh.

Lessons we learned:
1) Anyone under 4 or 5 needs to be in a stoller or a carrier. Too many people--too much chaos, really--for it to be safe for them to be loose. We were VERY thankful we had strapped Austin in.
2) Get there right away, aim to arrive early, before it opens, and you will have a much more enjoyable time. The line to get in the entrance was about a 1/4 mile long when we left. People just standing there, waiting to see something!
3) Don't pay full price. I enjoyed it more than Seth did, but even still, it's quite small and the walk around the whole thing wouldn't have been worth the hassle if we'd paid full price.
4) Expect people, strollers, tripods, cameras, never ending stopping and going and stopping again. It. was. nuts. Pack your patience.
5) Not all little boys are super into dinosaurs. There were some moving ones that even made noises and I suggested that Seth wheel over to them so Austin could see them (expecting some sort of excited response out of Austin) and when I leaned down to him and said "Isn't that cool?" He starts sharking his head and shrieking "No! No! No!" on the verge of tears and I shout at Seth to get him moving before he has a full break down (it was outside and noisy, I wasn't "yelling" at Seth). (He also did not appreciate the moving Longhorns we saw later. We put the hood down and I walked between him and them to block the view.)