Weekend Wrap Up

It was  a fun weekend here in central MA.  Saturday's spanish american festival was nice but clearly I wasn't thinking all that clearly when I decided to do this.  I knew the organizers, I knew it was free, I knew there was a bounce house.  Pretty much those were the deciding factors in us going.  LOL  The funny thing is, I just assumed our community in the larger sense would come.  My city has a high latino population but surely the rest of the community would be interested and supportive.  Can we say Heck NO everyone?  It was pretty well attended but I can assure you that I was the only "norte americana" (which is what all my residents call me here!) at the festival.  Likewise most everything was said in spanish which was cool with me, but I neglected to factor in that my children are not as fluent.  KC knows some, but Lissa and Rob none.  The littles I don't think really minded.  Bounce houses have a language all their own. (smile) So does face painting and the few games that they had there. But Rob is at that teen age where he feels I think a bit awkward in his own skin anyway.  He has gotten really tall really quickly, has the voice changing thing going on and now I plop him down in the middle of Little San Juan or something.  I translated stuff for him but he was way out of his comfort zone.  Not that I think that is bad.  Everyone needs to stretch and grow but it wasn't what I had thought of when I planned the day.  I sat with friends and we chatted during the meal.  (also free!)  I love Spanish music and I love that within the culture dancing is spontaneous and so expressive.  There were grandmothers dancing with daughters and granddaughters, an older man dancing surrounded by five women, women dancing with women. I  would have danced too but I think that would have just totally capped the experience for Rob--he has not quite yet recovered from me dancing at the concert we went to last December. LOL

Yesterday we went to a local agricultural fair.  KC has been eyeballing the poster for weeks when we went to the bank. Carefully taped at exactly kid height, he pointed it out every single Friday.  It intrigued me too, frankly. I grew up going to the Big E in the western part of the state and the Hampten county fairs.  I loved watching the animal exhibits, eating usually forbidden foods, riding rides and looking at the produce displays.  So we went to the fair.  It was so much fun.  It was the last day of the fair so I am glad we squeezed it in. 

I really have to post pictures because some of them are so funny.  And others are really good.  Rob was in charge of most of the photography and he has the patience and the eye to get good shots.  I don't.  Well perhaps I do but since one of my eyes is always on the kids they tend to come out in a blur that has meaning only to me. 

We saw a raptor exhibit and were so close to the birds who sat calmly on their perches, jesses hanging loosely while we listened to a bit of info on the birds.  We watched a dog do amazing frisbee retrieval. I can't catch a frisbee as well as that border collie could!  (this is not a joke. I speak truth!)  We looked at the animal exhibits, a weaving exhibit and watched a blacksmith at his forge.

Then it was off to the midway as KC had decided he wanted to go on the rides.  Yeah, right, I thought. This is the boy who rides a merry go round sitting on one of those benches that does not move and looks petrified.  Sure.   Except that some amazing bit of six year old bravery had plopped into his little body some time in the past few weeks.  And he did ride the rides.  I was stunned.  I am STILL stunned!  I think it helped that Lissa could ride with him.  I didn't mention she was three and she met every single height requirement.  They sat next to each other and rode the helicopters, the little cars, the crazy bus ride that is sort of like a ferris wheel and the merry go round.  They did the bounce house twice and two slide jungle gym type things as well.

From there we wandered off to watch an amazing trampoline act.  Who knew someone could jump on a tramp wearing a snow board?  Made me glad we didn't have a tramp anymore as I don't have to worry about any back yard reinactments! LOL  Then we watched a really good magic show.  I am a magic show afficionado, having grown up very enarmored of Harry Houdini and his magical legacy.  This was a show that did a lot more than interlock a few rings and make hankerchiefs turn into flowers.  He actually did one of Harry Houdini's more famous illusions.  I doubt the kids were as excited as I was but we did all enjoy it!

The rides cost money but so much  other stuff was free.  The kids did sack races, rubber chicken races and made little cars to race out of vegetables (!) all for free.  And got ribbons for participating which was almost as exciting to them as doing it.  The shows and the music events were all free.  The exhibits as well.  It was pretty darn amazing.

The food would have cost a fortune though. (4.00 for one slice of sad looking pizza!) So we headed out about 1:30 and had a late lunch at Uno's which is a restaurant the kids adore.  KC and Lissa essentially share a meal so it is not expensive.  I had the most amazing side salad (I had a migraine and was not really hungry)  It had watermelon chunks, blueberries, baby spinach leaves and red onion slices with a vinagrette dressing. Oh my goddess was it ever delish!  It had feta cheese too but I didn't really eat that as cheese when I have a migraine is so not a good mix.