tulip time

The evening of the Friday before Mother's Day we had a family outing. As in a real family outing in which we went and did stuff and Brian didn't study. It was an enormous treat and very fun. That morning the girls and I had been outside a lot. We were doing some serious cleaning of the van. As much as we could at least, with Rivers strapped in the car seat for part of it and yelling at Cumorah and I from the deck for another part of it. Anyway, we were settling in for a busy day of wearing grungy clothes and doing lots of good cleaning (I was feeling pretty good that morning). I checked my email when we went inside for a minute and Brian had sent us a message saying that some of the guys he had talked to at school said they were going to Pella for Tulip Time over the weekend and that one of them had said instead of going on Saturday his family was planning to go that very afternoon after he finished with his classes. Brian decided that our family should go, too (provided I was up to it). I was a little surprised and determined not to pass up an opportunity to do something fun with my husband (whom I really do adore, despite what he might say). He said he would be done around 2 and we could throw the kids in the car when he got home and drive the 45 minutes down to the festival. So the girls and I changed our plans and spent the rest of our morning and early afternoon preparing to go.

Pella's Tulip Time is one of many (so I've heard) tulip festivals held in historically dutch towns found in Iowa. It was really quite fun. I'd love to go again next year because now I know what I want to do there. They have a few small museums and a historic village that you can visit. All we managed to do this time around was play in the kids' section a bit, look at the tulips (which really were quite beautiful), eat some good tasting (but not necessarily good for you) food, get amazingly soaked, and stay up past bedtime watching the lighted parade. Yep, it was tremendous fun and adventure, especially the part where we got soaked.

Cumorah adored the bounce house as she is an avid jumper. Rivers got in on a little of the action from the side. Cumorah did not really adore golfing, not much patience for it yet but she played the whole round. She also had her first experience 'fishing", which she really liked due to the fact that what she caught was a tootsie roll. I think Rivers' favorite part was Brian's ginourmous sausage-like corn dog. He took a bite and then gave it to her for a taste and never got it back. We couldn't believe how much she ate. Cumorah on the other hand only ate the pickle-on-a-stick I got her. I really wanted a lot of food I couldn't eat. I would have loved my own corn dog and the dutch ribbons looked amazing, thin spiral cut french frie looking things. But remember, I'm forbidden to eat french fries. I did get to have a grilled steak sandwich, some crepes, and we all shared a dutch letter (a popular dutch pastry in these parts). I love fair and festival food.

While we were eating it finally started to sprinkle. It had been overcast the whole time. We didn't pay it much mind. It wasn't cold and we knew it would pass. Brian did end up going back to the van for a second umbrella and Cumorah's rain coat. We forgot the stroller rain cover which ended up being a really unfortunate mistake. We sat at a picnic bench huddled under our umbrellas enjoying the family closeness. People were still out and about. We kept saying, "It will pass over, we can see the sky over there." Pass it did. But not before it dumped so much water that the gutters overflowed and rivers sprung up in odd places. We finally had to make a run for it and crowd under a little tent set up behind a food shack we were sitting near. Poor Rivers got hammered in her stroller when we made the mad dash. I think the rain was angling straight in at her. We all were pretty dang wet and watched in amazement as it just kept pouring down. Truly, it just doesn't rain like that in California. When the downpour was quite finished people started coming out of whatever holes they had found to hide in and we all kind of made our way through the still running streams on the sidewalks and went back to doing whatever it was we had been doing. The sunshine was dazzling and the weather still warm despite the strong breeze. Rivers was deprived of her soaking jeans and the rest of us just kind of dried off in the wind.

We decided to stay for the evening parade. It didn't start until the sun went down (after bedtime). But we are glad we stayed. We ended up getting great seats right on the curb of the street even though we didn't reserve them hours before hand. Our secret? Sit in the driveway of the gas station. Nobody had staked those seats out hours earlier, but now no more cars were going to driving into the gas station since the streets were closed for the parade. The girls were fascinated by the parade. Cumorah's favorite were the marching bands (and there were a lot). She wants to play the drums now and asks every once in a while if she can get some drums when she's older. The lighted floats were fun to see, there were a lot of people dressed in various traditional dutch clothing, we witnessed the first appearance of Wyatt Earp and three of his brothers in the parade (apparently he lived in Pella for a time as a child), and the girls were given candy by various parade participators. What else could you ask for?

We left directly after the parade along with all the other hundreds of people. Fortunately, the traffic was gone by the time the girls were in pajamas, had their faces wiped off, Cumorah finished doing her thing in the porta potty in the back of the car, Brian returned from disposing of the plastic baggie, everyone had been given a drink of water, been strapped into their seats for sleeping on the way home and we were on our way.