While Daddy was out of town last week, I braved the
Sugar Creek Slavic Festival with the girls. I say "braved" because 1) I was the lone adult, though we later met some friends there; 2) it was an evening event so ripe with breakdown potential; 3) I decided to park in one of the (free) event parking lots and ride the (free) shuttle to the festival grounds, which the shuttle turned out to be super stroller-unfriendly as in a yellow school bus; and 4) the crowd order of magnitude wasn't as large as what I imagine it could be, say, on a Saturday night, but it was enough to stress me out. So much so that fifteen minutes before we left the house, I whipped up some stroller straps/leashes so that the girls could walk semi-freely and not end up lost for stopping or wandering off. (They were a life saver at the
Corpus Christi procession on Sunday.)
We seemed to be just about the only ones for an hour after we got there, so I snagged some baked goods – some decorative cookie I forget the name of and some bear claws, all Slavic I'm told – and we had dinner. The
kebab dinner wasn't a hit with the girls, so they split a hot dog and chips.
The decorative cookie I was telling you about. Ours was a three-pack with different color icing on top.
BB was crumbling icing all over the table, so G, after wolfing down her cookie, stood dutifully by and ate the icing, bit by bit, like a mouse.
I let them have one turn on the moonwalk, which cost me an arm and a leg, and which was BB's first time and she just loved the experience to pieces, but since there was no one else in line, the guy in charge let them go a bit longer. Above is the start of the kids' parade. I don't have any close-ups, however, I can tell you the red embroidery on white is my favorite.
In the background, you can see the adults doing their
kolo, which also had singing (different name?). The girls were absolutely mesmerized: loved it when the kids (about 70 of them?) danced and sang, were speechless and motionless for the adults. The big trouble came after the dancing (and before the kielbasa eating contest) when we tried to make our getaway and everyone decided at that moment to melt down. Thankfully there was the bus ride distraction (G: "Can we ride the bus again tomorrow?"), but let me just say it was a long drive home, in which *no one* fell asleep in the car! As I was telling Drew on the phone after I got everyone into bed, it was a neat experience – but also a mistake.
We seemed to be just about the only ones for an hour after we got there, so I snagged some baked goods – some decorative cookie I forget the name of and some bear claws, all Slavic I'm told – and we had dinner. The kebab dinner wasn't a hit with the girls, so they split a hot dog and chips.
The decorative cookie I was telling you about. Ours was a three-pack with different color icing on top.
BB was crumbling icing all over the table, so G, after wolfing down her cookie, stood dutifully by and ate the icing, bit by bit, like a mouse.
I let them have one turn on the moonwalk, which cost me an arm and a leg, and which was BB's first time and she just loved the experience to pieces, but since there was no one else in line, the guy in charge let them go a bit longer. Above is the start of the kids' parade. I don't have any close-ups, however, I can tell you the red embroidery on white is my favorite.
In the background, you can see the adults doing their kolo, which also had singing (different name?). The girls were absolutely mesmerized: loved it when the kids (about 70 of them?) danced and sang, were speechless and motionless for the adults. The big trouble came after the dancing (and before the kielbasa eating contest) when we tried to make our getaway and everyone decided at that moment to melt down. Thankfully there was the bus ride distraction (G: "Can we ride the bus again tomorrow?"), but let me just say it was a long drive home, in which *no one* fell asleep in the car! As I was telling Drew on the phone after I got everyone into bed, it was a neat experience – but also a mistake.
