S is for Snake

This weekend was the annual seafood festival in Ruskin, FL. We had never been in the past three years we've been here, but decided to give it a go since it's our last year here in Tampa. Nothing totally exciting, as far as festivals go. They had lots of business booths, a couple bounce houses and then the row of fried seafood...

We stopped in the Home Depot booth to make the free trivet with the kids. Hammers + Riley/Ronan = Nervous Momma, but the trivets turned out cute and the kids both got the signature orange aprons to keep. Did I mention that it was all free?

I don't want to brag, but I basically put Ronan's entire trivet together. I just let him think he hammered in the nails. LOL.

And then, Ronan showed us...

They had a rescued animal area where they had a black jaguar and huge tiger in these metal cages. As we were looking at them, I spotted a snake in the tree. Me, not being a huge lover of all things snake, mentally freaked out, but Ronan showed a huge interest in looking closer at it. The man brought the snake down and let Ronan pet it. Riley, well, she'd have NONE of it. She backed away about as far as I did...

And then the unthinkable happened. The man asked if Ronan wanted to hold the snake and while the rest of his family (and a growing crowd behind us watching in awe) thought he would say no...there he was, arms extended, ready to give his new friend a hug.

Ryan said that Ronan taught us all a lesson: Fear is all in the mind. Which, I guess makes sense (when Ryan has deep thoughts to share :)) Ronan had ZERO fear. He grabbed that snake like it was going to be his new pet and after the man asked if he wanted to wear it as a necklace -- which I was completely opposed to -- Ronan reluctantly gave the snake back...

If only you could have seen the crowd that gathered to see my little man hold this snake and their gasping of when he grabbed onto it. It was crazy.

So even though the festival itself wasn't anything to write home about, Ronan's adventure with the snake truly was...and thankfully, I have the pictures to prove it.