Rose Festival 2016

The last week or two I have found myself thinking, I should blog about that! Or, I should write that down and do a blog about it. So tonite, I'm finally sitting down with my feet up with the whole fam damily and we are watching the Olympic trials for swimming and here I am.  Actually (surprisingly) getting back to the blog.

The third weekend in June is always our town's big festival, called Rose Festival.  It starts on Thursday and runs through Sunday.  We live in the Rose Capital of Iowa in case you didn't know. :)  It's a busy, busy time for me especially working at the paper, so Grandma and Grandpa Burdorf are always nice enough to come down and help out.

Thursday nite you could go uptown and eat pizza, get a root beer float and decorate the sidewalks with sidewalk chalk for the weekend.  Oh!  And you were supposed to ride your bike uptown too - motorcycle or the kind you pedal.  I thought the sidewalk chalk idea was so neat.  It didn't rain so the sidewalks stayed decorated for the duration.

 They had tons of stuff going on, from the Rose Queen pageant (yes, that's a thing here and a big deal to be the Rose Queen).  I always have to take photos for the paper and I'm always a nervous wreck for the girls.

Bowen loved the petting zoo too. Not pictured, the creepy llamas....

 Saturday morning means the Rose Festival 5K!  Aaron has been in charge of it for the Athletic Boosters for the past four or five years.  The kids and I, along with Grandma Linda, man the water station and the kids make cute/funny signs for the runners/walkers.  Grandpa Frank also had to help man a corner to stop traffic. 

 The four kiddos were asked to be on our church's float during the parade.  It was SO weird to not have the kids with us during the parade!  There were something like 140 entries, so the kids did catch the end of the parade and we still got way too much candy in that short amount of time.

 Put this in the top five things that our family loves.  The Rose Festival board started this last year- they bring in the mascots from the state's universities.  I know, sooooo cool!  Here's our outcast child.  He stands alone and puts up with all the crap his siblings throw at him.  And, let me tell you, it's A LOT.

 The three smartest children I have. Haha.  Kidding Bowen, kidding.

 And, because Aaron is finishing up his master's at UNI, he needed a picture too. :)

They had little trains that the kids could drive and I'm pretty sure the boys could have stayed there all day.  They thought that was pretty neat.

 In the past, a carnival has been on Main Street, but this year, they had a ton of inflatables, mini golf, laser tag and more.  Blake was about two inches too short for the big trikes.

 

 Sunday wraps-up with another family favorite, the water ball fights.  We have always watched, but never participated.  This year, the kids joined in the fun.  They were divided into different age groups. 

 Blake and Bowen

 Brody, the thinker, with his goggles so he could actually see something.

 Jenna, not so much...

 And then this happened.  My friend came over and asked if I'd "be the fourth" for their team in the women's division.  NONE of us had ever done it before.  We went up against actual firefighters in the first round and we got beat quickly. 

 The second round lasted a little bit longer, but we still lost.  It was still a ton of fun and I'm glad I did it!

 And, last but not least, I have to bring this up.  Five, yes FIVE, years ago this Rose Festival was when we got to bring Blakers home from the hospital for the very first time after a very long 70 day stay. We got home from the hospital and loaded up the twins and went uptown. That was the first nite we had to hook-up Blake to his dialysis machine on our own.  We were nervous wrecks!

 Don't those turkeys look so much alike?!  Blake is on the left and Bowen on the right.  The funny thing is I didn't even think they looked alike when they were born.  Ha! 

 

Every year, I take a picture of the boys because Rose Festival is so special to us!