Watermelon Day

On Saturday, we had fun at Stanhope, Iowa's annual Watermelon Day.  We lucked out and had cooler, cloudy weather for the morning parade--even the few sprinkles we got felt nice after such a dry spell.  After the parade, Abby wanted to be sure to get right on the rides.  She's definitely a lucky girl--her great-uncle, great-grandma, and grandma all gave her some money for tickets, so she was all set for the day.  Over the course of the day, she rode the train and airplanes several times, and even tried the swings and bouncy house a few times, too.  She loved them all!  Another fun new thing for Abby this year was a nickel hunt--the police officers threw a bunch of nickels in a pile of sawdust, and had different age groups hunt for nickels for an allotted amount of time--a good way to earn money for more tickets, the duck pond, or the ring toss!

After lunch, Abby enjoyed "helping" my dad and aunt Miriam at the ring toss:

We're lucky to have a nice place to cool off and have lunch, right across the street from everything at my aunt Lori's.  Norah spent quite a bit of time there, and enjoyed hanging out with her buddy Trice, my cousin Megan's little guy.

We always enjoy the free watermelon, of course!

Abby usually doesn't like face-painters, but this year, she decided to get a watermelon painted on her arm like my sister and cousin Jessica:

Before they started closing up the rides, some of the cousins decided that it would be fun to all go for a train ride and take the babies on their first ride.  Luckily it didn't derail!  Then they thought it would be fun to go on the swings...seriously, I don't think I've gone on those since I was probably 10 years old...  They needed me to help balance it out since there were more adults than little kids, so I took Norah on her first swing ride.  We were definitely a little motion-sick afterwards and decided that something must happen as you get older, because we don't remember that from when we were kids.

I'm glad that the girls are getting in on some small-town fun, making memories like I did growing up!