2014 Apple Blossom Festival

I woke up around 6:00 am on Saturday morning to the pouring, driving rain.  The first thing that popped into my mind was "oh crap!"  Normally a morning like that would be perfect to sleep late, snuggle with the kids and drink coffee with a book.  However, this day we had big plans that included a parade, a soccer game and, oh.. about 30 people coming to our house for a party!  Thankfully, the sun came out moments before the parade started and it turned out to be a beautiful day!  Best of all, for us party planners, the game was rescheduled because the fields were wet!

Our town's annual festival happens in May, to celebrate the blossoming of apple trees, apparently.  I guess there are a lot of orchards in town and probably there used to be a lot more, so I suppose it makes sense. The festival consists of a fair, a parade, which seemingly every kid in town marches in, and of course, the crowning of the apple blossom queen.  Norah, thought, for a short while on Friday, that she was in the running for queen, but didn't see too upset when she realized it was a high school girl.

Each year since we've moved here, we've gone to the parade with our friend Megan, who used to live across the street.  In fact Megan has lived on our street for most of her life, and is a true townie.  Well this year, thanks to Kindergarten, Sunday School and the neighborhood, I knew more people at and in the parade than Megan did... we could be on our way to becoming townies :)

The town soccer kids (and baseball kids, and lacrosse kids, and hockey kids) all march in the parade, and toss candies to the (few?) kids who aren't marching.  Norah was really into it!

Turned out every family showed up for the party!  All of our usual suspects, who have been coming to these get togethers since the big kids were toddlers, plus two additional families who have moved in over the past year or so, both with daughters in Norah's class.   It was the first time we've had the friends from the hood over since the house was done, so it was also our chance to show everyone the house.   Last year, we got a cool picture of all the kids this time of year, so I wanted to try to make it an annual thing.  I wasn't able to get them to line up (halloooo 17 kids line up in front of a swingset??  What was I thinking)  Anyway, they're not lined up, but the picture turned out pretty cool!

(L-R) there's Evie (5), Lauren (5), Allie (almost 5), Connor (5), Cameron (just 5 this week!), Delaney (6), Norah (6), Kayla (6), Kaila (6), Roddie (soon to be 4), Leilani (6), Cameron (7), Connor (7) and Courtney (almost 2).  Missing Genevieve & Sarah (almost 2) who were about at their limit by photo time!