4th of July at the Eno

The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays, as I think you can tell from previous blog entries. Summer time, grilling out, fireworks, just gathering with friends and family with no presents or fancy meals - it's great! But one of my favorite things about the fourth when I lived in NC was going to the Festival for the Eno which is held over the fourth each year. It's music, food, art, etc - all to raise money to buy more parkland along the Eno River. I usually volunteered to facepaint (thus getting in free!). It was always hot hot hot, but I loved it. I hadn't been since we moved to State College so I was excited to finally get to go again this year, though I was a bit dubious about how dragging two small children around the festival, while pregnant, in hot humid weather would work. The answer - it worked surprisingly well!

We started with a free (airconditioned!) bus ride to the festival itself. The bus was a big hit with both the girls. We managed to find Grandma who was volunteering at a drink booth, and she told us about these neat wooden building blocks. Hayden loved them and spent at least 15 minutes building a structure that used as many blocks as she could.

getting started.

Can't you just hear Hayden? "No Eliza! Not like that!"

Our festive girl and her finished product.

While she was busy building, Eliza and I checked out the sand sculpture and dug a little bit in the play sand.

Not the best sand picture but she is holding a shovel and you can see her festive outfit!

What professionals can sculpt! Still a work in progress.

After building and digging, we added our own art to the big E-N-O community art project. I think Hayden really liked getting to color wherever on a huge O. Eliza had more fun trying to find tops for all the markers, a fruitless endeavor.

Jason's contribution was the "me too!" at the top of the O.

Then we were getting really warm, so we wandered down to the river to dip in our feet. Hayden liked wandering around, but Eliza begged to be picked up almost immediately. We hung out for a few more minutes, hoping we could get to play with one of the free nets that had been set out in the river area, but they were all used.
Eliza's preferred spot on the river bank. Still not sure why she didn't like wading in the Eno.

Then we managed to put our shoes back on and checked out the critters section. This is also where my camera died. We saw bees, salamanders, snakes, turtles, frogs, bugs, owls, doves, etc. Hayden learned about that the spotted salamander was the honorary animal of the festival (there's a different one each year) and that yellow bellied sliders are turtles that live in the Eno.

Next it was lunch time, and after a difficult trip up to the food court area (we had to drag H away from some exhibits, and then convince her to walk uphill in the sunshine to find lunch). Festival food is one of my favorites and we had a good time sampling different things: ribbon fries, a cheesesteak, lemonade, soft pretzel, ice cream, and a cherry-lime locopop. We were a bit worried about Eliza as we sat down for lunch, but she rallied when we pulled out some milk for her and ate all of a mini-bagel we'd brought, plus ice cream, and much of my delicious yet tart locopop.

After lunch the kids enjoyed the "musical petting zoo" that was right behind our shady lunch spot, and then we checked out a few art booths. Then we lucked into seeing the Paper Hand Puppet parade that had all the HUGE puppets on sticks, or carried by people, with drums playing and everything. Jason took a few pics with his phone I can share.

H watching the revelry with Popop.

Oh, and there was this cool polar bear and cub made out of plastic bags!

After the parade, we bought a tshirt for me and a onesie for Nugget (with a salamander!) and called it a day. The girls did amazingly well for a very busy long hot day and both took naps when we got home. A successful first Eno Festival for both of them. No fireworks in the evening after such a busy day, but we did enjoy some hotdogs that we cooked stovetop since it was POURING rain outside. The girls finished off the day with homemade blue and red popsicles for dessert! (which by the way, were delicious and made from almost all local fruit. so tasty!)