arts festival

We spent yesterday afternoon at a local Arts Festival. It was a fairly small festival, and a beautiful autumn day to spend at the park, so we all had a nice time. But I think J's favorite activity was buying a treat from the ice cream truck, and Zoo Boy's favorite thing was probably playing on the playscape at the park. Still, it's always fun to get out as a family and interact in our community.

There were wandering puppeteers with various critters. We unfortunately managed to miss the puppet show earlier in the day, so we're happy that the troupe stayed on to entertain throughout the afternoon.

Zoo Boy wasn't sure whether he should be in love with or afraid of this "living gargoyle". He followed it around for quite a while, fascinated by it, but the moment it turned to face him, he'd scurry quickly behind The Map Man's legs. Even in this photo, he's shrunken into the protection of his dad's arms, yet there's a huge smile on his face. Fascination and Fear, the boy is going to be a Halloween junky!

The boys try their hand at blowing gigantic soap bubbles. There was live music of various genres, and tents full of fine artisans, some demonstrating their crafts, some selling their wears, some just displaying their art.


There was also a re-enactment (by a local theater group in conjunction with the town's Historical Society) of the very first murder mystery in town. I packed the kids off to the playscape with The Map Man while I attended the performance. The production was to promote a "haunted history tour" the group was giving later that evening. Being a bit of a history geek, I of course signed up, then we headed for home so that we could get the kids settled before I headed back out for the walking lantern tour. (The tour was very interesting and educational, by the way, but it was a good decision not to include the kids -- it wasn't particularly scary, just would have been long and over their heads in the informational department, and a bit late into the evening for them.)

It was a nice event, I hope next year's is a bit larger. Being the same weekend as two other events in town I think held both participants and attendance down.