One of my favorite childhood pastimes was to go to the Strawberry Festival. This huge local festival is hosted in Plant City every spring and the weather is always gorgeous. Andy and I had decided early on that this festival would become a tradition for our boys. We would randomly pick a day and then surprise them by showing up to school and checking them out for early release. Davy went once when he was younger, but he didn’t remember it and Matty has never been.
Mom came along to join us today and help me out with the boys. She met us at the gate 1 entrance and as we walked in I just loved watching Davy’s reaction. He immediately spotted the cowboys hats and I just smiled to myself. Right after Andy and I started dating, we went to the festival on one of his weekend visits and he bought a cowboy hat (his first cowboy hat) and said it was because I always said that I wanted to marry a cowboy. How cute is he. :O) I promised Davy that we would pick up a couple on our way out.
To the left of the festival, or on the east side, they had the little children’s rides…so that’s where we headed. I asked Davy which one he wanted to ride first and he smiled from ear to ear and pointed to the ferris wheel.
From there both boys wandered through the rides, riding as many as they could. We were lucky because the height requirement for most of them was 36 inches. Matty just barely hit that mark. Other rides were the train, fun house, the carousel, the swings, four wheelers, bumper boats, trucks, helicopters, the giant slide, and the spinning strawberries.
After we were done riding the rides it was time to indulge in some festival food. No trip to the Strawberry Festival would be complete without some strawberry shortcake loaded down with whipped cream. Some other foods that we had were bacon dipped in chocolate, cotton candy, and fresh squeezed lemonade. Outside the shortcake tent was this “grandpa puppet”, Matty thought that he was so funny.
Over at the midway Davy won three fish and both boys won stuffed toys by throwing darts.
As we ended our day at the festival, like promised we stopped at the hat booth to pick up a few cowboy hats. Aren’t my boys just the cutest…if I do say so myself! :O)
Being in Richmond and so close to Uncle John, I just had to take the boys out to Gywnn’s Island to visit for the day. It was short notice, but we were fortunate enough to make it work and an added bonus…Susan came out to spend a couple of hours with us too. Colin and Emma joined us for the day, and boy did they all have a good time!
Mountains! Beach! or Both!... 