Strawberry Festival, Hold the Strawberries

If you ever thought sandwich board or staked-into-the-ground advertisements were a total waste, today proved that wrong for us. The boys were up early and wild as can be and needed a morning activity before we could take them to lunch (you can imagine how early it must've been when the lunch place opens at 11), and as we started driving down towards the local u-pick blueberry farm, I spotted a sign for a "Strawberry Festival".

Intrigued, we made the u-turn around back to one of the boys' favorite local parks, where we parked the car to find O and Z nirvana: bounce houses (they sampled one), the actual playground/water toys of the park, pony rides, a train ride, and a main stage with their favorite band jamming away. Z immediately sat in a seat and smiled at the band while O started dancing in the kiddie mosh pit area. Z eventually joined him and they had a blast dancing to the rest of the set; at one point a giant Geico Gecko danced through (because what says Bellevue like an insurance icon?), which Z loved and O got immediately shy of.

Next we were off to one of the several giant bounce houses, a perennial favorite -- we're actually considering renting one for Z's next birthday if we end up celebrating at home. Then everyone was hungry (and it was starting to rain), so we grabbed space at a table in the festival's giant tent and I hunted down faire food, namely hot dogs (declined by the boys despite O strongly requesting one) and elephant ears (eagerly consumed by O). (If you were wondering about the festival's namesake, I couldn't for the life of me actually see any fresh strawberries, just the usual faire Shishkaberry chocolate-covered strawberry stand.) With the rain still coming down, our time at the festival was over -- and it was on to some indoor play to wrap up a lovely family morning.