The Festivus For the Rest of Us

This past weekend was the 26th Annual Kenney Fall Festival (aka: Festivus).

I ♥ the Fall Festival! I remember going every year as a kid. Well, I still go every year. It's nothing too fancy, just a lot of people from my home town village of 400.

I thought this year was going to be emotionally rough for me (like I said Friday). And I was right. Except, it was good too. I feel very much at peace. We definitely missed Grandpa a whole lot this
weekend. But we still represented...


I was surprised to see his sign, right there in the usual spot. This time, no woodworking for sale. Just my family with a canopy set up as a place for us to sit & visit. I definitely missed him a whole lot. As the cloggers started their tapping, I couldn't help but start silently crying. Then laughing. You know that full body shaking laughing. I call it my "church laugh" - you know when you want to be quiet, and holding in the laughter just makes your whole body shake. I knew Grandpa was looking down on us, & he was putting on quite the dancing show for everyone in Heaven.

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Now, onto the fun kid pictures.

The last several years there has been a bouncy house. Rachel {normally my weinie kid} was absolutely fearless. She was so into it. She kept yelling "I jumpin! Mama, I jumpin!"



In addition to the regular ol' bouncy house, there was a bouncy slide. I thought for sure, Rachel would not be into that at all. But once again, she proved me wrong. She loved it. I bet she went up & down that huge slide at least 50 times. It was my favorite when her & Olivia went down the slide together.


There was a clown who was painting faces for free.

If I recall correctly, her name is Sally the Clown...here is a little known fact about Sally the Clown. Two years ago Jarrett & I were sitting at my Grandpa's stand while everyone else was up doing something. Sally was set up right beside him. She was there for 4 hours painting kids faces. She was just closing up shop & was getting everything lined up in her tackle box of tools. Then, she dropped it & all the paints fell out. Before Jarrett & I could get up to help her, she dropped the F-Bomb. It was funny. Not that she dropped her stuff all over the ground. But the fact that a lady in a full on clown suit, with a red nose, rainbow wig, & big shoes dropped the F-Bomb.

Olivia got her face painted like a tiger.


She told me that Sally told her that if she didn't wash her face for 2 weeks it would become permanent. So when we got home that evening, she was very quick to wash her face. Ha!

Olivia also won on the cake walk. And this time, I told her before she started, "if you win, please do not pick the carrot cake". So what did she choose...brownie cheesecake cupcakes. Delish!

Saturday afternoon, there was a little bluegrass trio called "Kickin Grass" {clever name, huh} - they were so good. I loved it. So did my Dad. He is so into music, he had to go up to each of them & tell them how awesome they were. I think my favorite was when they did the theme song from Petticoat Junction - they got some audience participation & didn't even ask for it!

All in all, it was a really nice Festivus.