Friday I heard about a Children and Apple Pie Festival that takes place right in our little village, put on by a local independent school, Evergreen, as a fundraiser. It sounded like fun, so we decided to go check it out on Saturday. I’m glad we did. It was actually a great little festival with lots of things for Meredith to do.
When we first got there, Meredith immediately noticed the fire trucks lined up. She has been very interested in fire trucks the last couple of weeks, to the point that I had been discussing with Kris earlier the possibility of setting up a homeschool excursion to a fire hall. So the first activity she wanted to do was to go talk to the firemen and women that were there and have a chance to squirt the hose.
She also wanted to throw balls at the dunk tank. She ended up hitting the target, but hadn’t thrown hard enough to actually trigger the seat, so the fire man there hit it with his hand. Everyone cheered, but as we walked away she frowned and commented that she hadn’t done it, he had. So I had to explain to her that he was trying to be nice and that she had hit it, she just hadn’t hit it quite hard enough.
Next, we had to check out the apple pie booth, but had discussed that likely we would have to pass on the pie and plan to make our own later, due to the fact that they would probably have dairy in them. We’re not always super strict about it, but we have been for the last two weeks or so and we didn’t want to stop. It turns out, they had dairy-free pies (as well as other dairy-free treats) to choose from, and all of their treats were homemade by parents at the school.
Then we checked out an obstacle course, a bouncy castle, and a spinning ride. Fiona ended up not liking the ride and we had to stop it and get her off early, but Meredith went back for another ride later. (Click any picture to see it bigger.)
Pacific Northwest Raptors was there with an owl and a falcon, as well as lots of feathers and things to see from other birds. We listened to him talk about the birds for a little bit and Meredith seemed fascinated to see the owl up close. She didn’t seem as interested in the falcon.
Near there was a book and plant sale. They had a big table full of books that were free with a big sign imploring people to take as many as they wanted. The lady manning that table kept finding some great picture books and asking if I wanted more. She told me it was near the end of the day and to not feel bad about taking as many as I wanted. I walked out of there with an armful of free books as well as a few gems we paid for.
Meredith wanted to stop and try out the darts, though she didn’t manage to pop a balloon.
As we were leaving, we passed a woodworking table and Meredith wanted to build a truck before we left. The man helping us showed her how to do one of the wheels, and after that she was able to do the rest pretty much all on her own. She doesn’t like to get too much help with things so that suited her fine and she was quite proud of her truck in the end.
They did have a station set up for painting too, but the idea was actually to do the woodworking at the beginning so your truck or car would have a chance to dry while you looked around. We decided to take it home to paint it since we were on the way out. Meredith wanted to paint it like a fire truck, and had a lot of fun getting it just right.
Overall, it was a really fun day and I’m glad we went. Even though we plan to homeschool, this little school is the type of school we would send her to if for some reason we had to (and it’s within walking and biking distance), and I know from being on the local home schooling list that the two communities are actually fairly intertwined. One of the teachers I talked to told me that they often get previously home schooled kids in the later grades who have decided they want to try out school, and she was very supportive of home schooling.
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