The Festival

If you are talking to any locals here and you refer to The Festival, they will all know that you are talking about The Festival of the Forks. It seems like I just posted about last year's festival, but here we are again. This year we were missing Kalen and Taylor who were in Chicago on a youth temple trip. So since I was outnumbered and wanted to keep things as stress-free as possible we opted not to have Lynnsey walk in the parade with her school because the are supposed to have a parent walking with them. Instead we decided to just watch the parade and look for Kendall who was riding the youth theater float. Spencer took a few pictures while we waited:

And he was not happy to have to hand the camera back:

This picture below is SO cute! Kaya is just such a friendly, outgoing baby. She walked right over to this sweet elderly lady and forged an instant friendship. Periodically, she would go back and pat the lady's leg and smile up at her.

And here is Kendall on his float--if you look very closely. He's the little pirate face peering out between the kid with the sombrero and the kid in the green jacket. I had only one perfect chance at a shot of him when he leaned up to wave at us, so instead of snapping the picture I waved back at him and lost my opportunity.

After the parade we walked up and down the street to check out the various vendors and businesses and listen to a variety of performers stationed along the way. We took a bathroom break at the kids museum and ended up staying for quite awhile to enjoy their brand new Japan exhibit. The kids loved this giant cushiony Cat Bus:

And Kendall had a so much fun learning how to make an animated movie by stationing various backgrounds and figures in front of the camera and then moving them around. He did it a few times and it was fun to see how each one came out.

He also enjoyed sitting at a drafting table to draw and color his own anime character. After awhille we decided we'd better head back outside with promises of a quick return to enjoy the new exhibit again soon.

Once we had made it up one side of the street we stopped to enjoy some butterfly chips and elephant ears before seeing what was on the other side. When we turned to go down the street we enjoyed this view of all the people who had come out to enjoy the day. It was so crowded that we had trouble getting through in spots but we loved that there was such a great turnout: (the picture doesn't even do it justice)

We had fun at the Kids Corner where various booths were set up to do little arts and crafts activities. And then we enjoyed watching some Native American dancers to cap off the day.

Kendall was completely fascinated by it and said it was probably his favorite part. When that was over and we decided we were pretty much festival-ed out we bought some cotton candy and headed home. It was another fun year and we are looking forward to the next--hopefully with the entire family though.