Pittsburgh International Children's Festival OR Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine

Donovan and I had a date with Leo, his Mom, his sister and her friend at the International Children's Festival today.  I was super-geeked because part of the festival was huge "luminaria" that you could walk thru called Amococo.  I was even more excited when we got there because it was HUGE.  Massive, even.  And of course, like all things I think my son will like, as soon as we walked in the crying started, "I don't like this place!  I want to leave!  I want to put my shoes back on!"  I try not to feel too bad when he does this but sometimes I get this overwhelming feeling of defeat.  Luckily I fought it because, after a friend of mine who was working there showed us some of the cooler parts, Donny started getting into it. 

 It helps that the kid's favorite color is red.

 While we waited in line, one of the enthusiastic young ladies who was helping explained to us how it worked, saying, "Every room has a different color and so your clothes and skin and hair will turn that color." And I did not say to her, "Has anyone involved with this project ever read The Masque of the Red Death, because its not really a kid's book..."

 After that, we went and walked around and sampled a bunch of the tents and booths that were set up.  Leo's sister and her friend went to get their faces painted and I took the boys to get their first tattoos.

Directly after this, they had 4 more beers and ended up at the Navy Recruitment office.