Harvest Homecoming!

It's no secret that Harvest Homecoming is my favorite event all year long, second only to Girls' State. I love everything about HHC. We always went when I was a kid, and the St. Anthony pompon squad was always in the parade. As I got older, I spent time at the festival working the booths for various organizations, performing with DanceWorks, and even competing in the pagaent one year. In 2000, I cancelled a blind date to go to Harvest with my cousin, ended up running into Tony for the first time since high school, and the rest (as they say) is history. Ironically, Tony was working the Republican booth and our conversation started with how I was going to run for Superintendent of Public Instruction one day. Ten festivals, eight years of marriage and three kids later, we've both run for public office but are no closer to the state house than we were then.

Anyway, Friday night is always grown-up night at the festival for Tony and I. It's the "anniversary" of our first unofficial date. Last night it was raining, but that's not enough to keep me from Harvest. Tony's been helping out at a new winery downtown for the weekend, so after Nene arrived to watch the kids, I headed out to meet him. We walked around in the rain and I got my chicken and dumplings and my pumpkin ice cream. When we were saturated with fat and raindrops, we went back to the River City Winery (which I highly recommend, by the way). Tony poured me a round of samples, and I picked a favorite. Then I hung around and chatted with some of the HHC officials who chose the winery as a dry-out location while Tony worked. When it slowed down (relatively speaking), he walked me back to my car and I headed home.

This morning, we were pleasantly surprised that both boys' ball games were cancelled due to the wet fields. Andrew went to TaeKwonDo testing, and then we had a gorgeous Saturday ahead of us with absolutely no plans. Of course, we decided to head to the HHC festival. The costume contest was this morning, and I decided on a whim to enter Sophie -the only one of the kiddos with a costume ready to go. It was a chilly morning, so she was pretty well-behaved in her big quilted butterfly costume.
Here's her first ever trip across a stage. I'm sure it'll be the first of many, because as soon as she can walk she be at DanceWorks!

She didn't win, mostly because I didn't realize what a cutthroat competition this was. Parents went all out with the homemade costumes. The best was a baby Popeye, complete with pantyhose muscles and a corncob pipe pacifer. Sophie didn't care about not winning, however, because she loved her green participation ribbon. Apparently it tasted wonderful.

The Harvest Homecoming Queen, Heather Brown, is a longtime friend of ours. She has been around the dance studio since she was a little girl, has babysat for my kiddos, and she has grown into a beautiful young woman. She came over to have a photo op with the costume contest winner, but we grabbed her to do a picture with Sophie as well. I know that if Heather keeps at it, she'll not only be Miss Indiana one day soon, but could have a shot at Miss America as well. And Sophie can say, "I pulled Miss America's hair and chewed on her sash!"

After the boys waited patiently for their sister, we headed to "Kid's Day in the Tent". It was a great event, with lots of vendors offering free activities for the kid. The boys loved painting pumpkins, which we then had to carry carefully through the booths without getting paint on anything or anyone.

Here's a classic Harvest Homecoming picture:

Before we left, we dropped Tony back off at the winery to work. He poured samples for his mom and she bought a bottle. The boys were very patient, and enjoyed sharing some chocolate chips that were meant to be eaten with the cherry wine.

All in all, it was a very satisfactory weekend. I'm glad we had great weather today for the boys to enjoy HHC with me. I have to start their loyalty early! For those of you from out of town, you can check out the HHC website at www.harvesthomecoming.com . I also recommend checking out the River City Winery http://www.rivercitywinery.com/ . I'm so sad another HHC has come and gone :(