Harvest Festival

We had an enjoyable day together today. It has been SOOO long since we’ve gone someplace fun as a family since our little guy was born. We went to our town’s annual Harvest Festival.



There was a fun petting zoo stocked with 4-H animals. After my 4yodd finished petting a very small pony, she says, “Daddy! I wanna go pet the cow!” Hubby laughs, “Honey, there’s no cow in here”. “It’s right over there!” she says. Sure enough, a brown and white calf was standing over in the corner looking quite unamused by all the hubbub going on around him. Turns out he wasn’t so fond of being pet either. Thankfully, being a cow, there wasn’t much he could do about it.



We then let the girls go through a maze. Hay bales would have been a nice touch, but someone thought, hey, blue tarps with pvc pipe would be cheaper and easier, so there you have it. Of course, we decided with little guy in tow, the girls could handle it themselves, told them to stay together and off they went. 2 minutes later a hysterical 4yo comes running back out through the entrance yelling, “I can’t find sister!!!” Dh took her back in, found big sis, and all was well again.



Ian did fantastic. Smiled, loved the nice breeze, cat napped and actually did NOT spit up during the entire 3 hour event. God was smiling on us….giggle.



There was a scarecrow contest, which actually turned out to be quite an ordeal. Each entry had a “scene” they portrayed. You had everything from Sponge Bob scarecrows to not-so-lovely “Death Valley” skeleton-scarecrows. The categories were youth, school groups, churches (which I have to say, you wonder what in the world they were thinking when they put together their “scenes”, but I’ll spare you the details), teens, family etc. My favorite was a library “scene” with 2 cute children reading. Of course, like many “amateur” contests, you always have the token “that had to have been professionally done” entry. That one was the Wizard of Oz scene. Too bad I didn’t remember to think of bringing the camera. It was very well done (so well, that I hope it didn’t win….is that bad of me or what?).



There were of course, the crafter booths, rotary booths, business booths, and booths that make you wonder where the thought process was in the person who made the executive decision to set a booth up to begin with.



Our city is “known” for it’s pumpkin weigh off’s. It goes on for hours as forklifts transport pumpkins to and from the massive scale set up. The largest one we got earwind of was 900 something pounds. I don’t get the excitement over oversized squash, but if it floats your boat and all that sorta thing, LOL.



Of course, they had all the massive air filled entertainment “rides” which we managed to avoid. The maze was enough for our girls. Besides, Emma will probably need therapy for it someday anyway. I’d say that indicates it was pretty exciting, wouldn’t you?



Eating was a major ordeal. That lasted at least an hour an a half from the point of “What should we eat and why didn’t we bring more than $8 in cash?” to the actual completion of our hot dog, nacho, and “freedom” fries meal. Of course, we topped it off with a visit to the porta pottys which we all know, fully rounds out any family festival experience.



All in all, it was a fun and exhausting time. Next autumn- DISNEYLAND!