Akron's "National Night Out"

My sister lives in the town of Akron and they held their first ever "National Night Out" this evening. The purpose of this event is to heighten awareness and strengthen participation in crime prevention. Hadley and I headed down to Akron in the early afternoon so that she could play with her cousins, Gabe and Julianna before we headed over to the park for the evening. When we got to the park they had lots of fun stuff to do including a train that you could ride, clowns handing out candy, a huge water slide, cotton candy and popcorn, a fire prevention house, the landing of Samaritan and most importantly, a DNA kit/testing with the police department to help aid in a search should your child ever become missing. We had a great time hanging out and enjoying the evening!

Gabe and Hadley giving hugs above, and then Juli getting in on the action below. These kids are so cute together!

This is a picture of the water slide. It was mostly for older kids. I'm surprised that Hadley didn't ask to get on it, considering how much she loves water. She seemed less than interested though.

We didn't ride the train, but Hadley kept pointing at it and saying "Choo Choo!"

I wonder when she'll quit sucking her thumb?

I had to snap this picture so that I can show it to her when she becomes a big girl!

I do not like clowns one bit...never have. Gabe, Juli and Hadley didn't seem to mind them at all, but they did have candy in their pockets!

Hadley's first cotton candy. She liked it at first, but decided very quickly that it was too sweet.

Poor Juli. She was having a bad night, and then Gabe and Hadley made her scoot down so that Hadley could have a seat which made it even worse!

Hadley getting her DNA kit and fingerprints taken for the national database to aid in missing children.

Gabe got to go next...

...and last but not least, Juli!

There was no mistaking when Samaritan was going to make it's appearance. It was very loud and VERY close. You can see from Hadley's face above that she was not excited about it's arrival.

This is seriously how close it flew over top of us before landing. I have to admit that it made me a little nervous too!

Hadley and I had to hang back a bit until she calmed down and felt comfortable going over to check out the helicopter. We decided to take a self portrait while we waited.