Sandy Mountain Festival

Who knew that we moved into such a party town? We've missed the Sandy Mountain Festival the previous two years we've been here since we were out of town. Man, I didn't know what we were missing! It all kicks off with a parade. We are lucky to have good friends that are old timers at this so we were able to set our chairs up early in the morning to get a good spot next to them. This was the kids first parade experience and I think they had fun. Holy cow they collected a lot of candy! Audri was a bit grumpy since she dislocated her elbow the night before and had a bad morning at the doctor to get it taken care of...but I think you'll be able to see from the pictures she was able to still pull a few funny faces :) The parade was fun, and then the next day we went to the 'kids' parade. They have free activities and snacks for the kids, gussy them up with whistles and pretty necklaces. Then we all parade around the block. Lots of kids bring bikes or ride on toys. The only people cheering are the police who've closed of the streets, but the kids don't seem to mind. When we got back there was hot dogs and popcorn...it was a fun morning! Saturday is the day of the big festival in the park. People come from all over. I've never seen so many people in our little town! We headed over to lots of booths with people selling their wares and TONS of food and music and puppet shows. We ate a lot: elephant ears, snow cones, yakisoba noodles, and lots of pop and water. The kids got a little treat (a sand mermaid for Audri and a sand dragon for Brayden) Brayden also had some artwork for sale. So, of course we had to buy that too. His school has a pretty fun art program, but it is solely funded by donations so some of the kids' pieces from the school year were sold to make some money for next year. It was so cute, and the kids had some really cool pieces. I'll have to post a pic of his masterpiece later. There was also a carnival with rides and games, but grandpa and grandma took the kids to that, so I don't have any pics. But they rode the roller coaster, won lots of prizes and ate Cotton candy. So, that was the Sandy Mountain Festival...and I think I may have to make a tradition of coming every year...so no vacations during the second week of July!

Waiting for the Parade to start

Pulling Funny Faces

We're True Sandy-ians now!

Two of the cutest things IN the parade

Practicing their noise making skills before the kids parade.

Audri and her 'participant' ribbon

Taking a break at the park, we lucked out with awesome (almost too hot) weather!