National Peanut Festival

After living in LA (Lower Alabama) for three years (total) we FINALLY made it to the National Peanut Festival in Dothan.

The kids LOVE going to "vegetables" or festivals so I told them we were going to the biggest festival yet. They were excited and told me they wanted to play a lot of games...the festivals we've been to within the last month have been the Fall Festival at church, the Harvest Festival at Nolen's school, Boll Weevil Festival, Chili Cook-Off...all on a different scale. When they saw the fair at the NPF they were pretty excited!!! I think they ran all the way to the midway...well, I was kind of excited to take them there so it may have been me that was running and pullling the kids along...either way we were all ready for a night of fun! I told the boys that we would each get to choose one ride to ride and we would all ride together. The boys were ANGELS!!! We all wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel first. I was a little nervous that the kids would get freaked out at the top, but they were cool as cucumbers. Then the boys chose the dragon roller coaster. I was nervous about letting them ride it, but they were fine and LOVED it. They were both jumping up and down when they got off and each gave me a huge hug.

Can we go Mom? Can we? Please, please, please!!!

Climbing onto the roller coaster - so brave for a kid who gets motion sick on a carousel!

Waiting for the ride to start!





This is my favorite picture of the roller coaster!


I love this picture of Max's hair blowing! (It really didn't go that fast.)
I absolutely love how excited kids can get about life. I guess that is what they mean when they see, "see it through a child's eyes." I really love getting to show my kids all these cool things lately...Halloween, the fall festivals, EHS football game...things that are no big deal to grown ups but turn into really special nights for the kids. And they're extra lucky because they always get to take their best friend with them! OK, enough mush, back to the Peanut Festival.

Happy kids!!!

After we were done at the midway, we got some boiled peanuts and headed over to see the animals. We only saw the goats because then we went to find the Calf Wrangle and Greased Pig Contests!!! We couldn't see very well so the kids weren't that into it. They DID like getting to sit there and eat boiled peanuts though. We didn't make it through the whole show but it was cool to see the wrangle.

The contestants wore football helmets and there were about twice as many people as calfs. They call them calfs, but they weren't little! They were as tall as me. The calfs all start running around and people are chasing and diving and trying to pin them. Once they pin one, they get their rope and try to loop it around the calfs neck and nose and get it back across the finish line. One guy totally did a face plant in the dirt diving after a calf. One guy was trampled in the fray and they brought out a stretcher and paramedics!! They made a point at the beginning to say that the welfare of the calfs is first priority over that over the contestants.