Bless my husband, John. The man has been kicking butt for me all weekend around the house, and then last night he stayed up late splicing together recordings of sounds from the Johnny Appleseed Festival with recordings of Miles narrating the photos from our weekend there. It’s a labor of love though, because as you know, we truly love that weekend and having such a wonderful way to remember it is such a great gift to have. Yea for you John!

So without further ado, here’s the Johnny Appleseed Festival, as seen through the eyes and heard through the ears, of my family. Crank up your speakers to hear the music, people mingling and of course, Miles’ little three year old voice. Keep your ears open for Miles busting into song about playing a game where he was searching for a block in a barrel of corn and for his little “pop cccccccorn” where he pretends to sound the word out like he’s reading it. (He can read lots of words now, so he likes to sound words out, even when he’s not reading them.)

So grab a cup of apple cider and join us for the festival:

A list of my favorite things from the festival:

• Homestead High School’s Chicken & Dumplings
• The quirky folk music (Bonus if they sing “I’ll Fly Away”)
• Boy Scout’s fresh squeezed apple cider
• Miles getting his face painted
• The antique tents
• Pulled pork sandwiches
• the “kid band”
• Apple dumplings
• Carmel kettle corn
• Bag pipers playing Amazing Grace
• people watching and running into people I know
• finding quirky little crafts,like the felt & painted clay bat I have hanging on my front door. We have named him Scrubby.
• Our secret parking spot that is awesome and somehow still a secret. Yesss!

The quality of the photos aren’t our best, but honestly, going to the festival with a three year and a newborn PLUS my camera? Well, I’m just proud of us for taking photos at all! I think next year I might plan a trip to the festival for just John and I because it is SO much fun to take photos at the festival, but it’s just so hard to get good ones when juggling kiddos too. I am so thankful we took photos though. So much fun to take and have them.

Even though John and I had a blast, and Jocelyn slept wonderfully in her sling throughout our time at the festival, I have to admit that Miles was very underwhelmed for a lot of it. It was like we took along a morose teenager who was like, “Um….when is this going to be fun?” We were horrified to say the least at his boredom.

I shouldn’t be surprised that the idea of eating chicken and dumplings while perched on a bail of hay and listening to folk music doesn’t totally charm a three and a half year old. We made him do it, like the old fogies that we are and tried our best to sell him on the experience. Gosh darn it, this kid is going to learn to love the festival if it takes years of dragging him along! 😉 So we ignored his sour attitude and pressed on, thankful that he ended up LOVING the kid’s games and desserts. Oh and the candy prizes? He was in HEAVEN.

Thankfully we got lots of smiles like this during our weekend there:

Honestly, Miles speaks fondly of the festival in retrospect. Monday morning he wanted to go again, probably yearning for another rock candy fix. He was actually pretty tired that weekend and ended up conking out in the stroller, which we honestly just took to haul all of our crap. That hasn’t happened since he was a baby. Oh, and he slept through canons going off, so you know he was pretty tired. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed taking a peek into our most wonderful time of the year behind Halloween. If you are in the area, you definitely should consider going next year. It’s so wonderful to eat food that is cooked over an open flame and just soak up all the simple goodness of a time that is, compared to our digital life now, like visiting another planet. A really awesome one. 🙂