Strawberry Festival!

As mentioned a few posts ago, our little Mayberry-like community is celebrated as the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World! And our Strawberry Festival is the biggest event of the year. It's been a local tradition since 1930. The festival was founded by Albert Schneider, the first mayor of our town, who organized its first Lions Club for area businessmen and who built our house in 1902 for his bride, Annie.

Our whole town (including schools, banks and City Hall) closed on Monday for the "Grand Parade" and family day. Along with traditional festival-fare (think funnel cakes, cotton candy, Italian sausage and buckets of fries), the Strawberry Festival features all sorts of strawberry-based delicacies, including St. Clement's strawberry shortcake, chocolate-dipped strawberries and strawberry-cream cheese pizza. There are rides, livestock and horticulture shows, crafts and our girls' favorite attraction--Robinson's Racing Pigs.

Each year we get tickets to see big name performers on stage just down the road from our home. According to town legend, Bing Crosby was one of the first big name performers to visit our town and, after his performance, he joined the Schneiders in our kitchen for strawberry shortcake. We had a great lineup of performers this year--including Third Day, Taylor Swift, George Jones and Randy Travis.

Taylor Swift

Third Day

The little-named performers were just as good, especially Miss M's dance class (scroll down and pause (II) the background music before playing the video):

And we always pull at least one late-nighter building our obligatory "Baby Parade" float(s). The Baby Parade is an annual event as old as the Festival itself. When we announced our first pregnancy to our neighbors, the first thing out of their mouths was "oh--you HAVE to put your baby in the baby parade, anybody who is anybody in this town participates". And thus our float-building ritual began. And every year we've managed to snag a 1st, 2nd or 3rd place award, which means that we now have a reputation to uphold, as people hint to us how they are looking forward to our entry each year. For fun, here are the themes and some pictures from Baby Parades past:

75 Years and Still Jammin': Miss M and Elvis (Daddy B) and our "Rock and Roll" Float:

More than Just Shortcake: Cowgirl Miss M and me with our "Livestock Show" Float: Lights, Camera, Action!: Miss M and Paparrazzo Daddy B on our "The Red Carpet" Float (complete with paparrazzi with flashing strobes on their cameras): Lights, Camera, Action: Miss A on our "Let's Go to the Movies" Float: This year's theme was "Hometown Salute to America." Miss A, riding our Sweet Land of Liberty float, won a 3rd place Most Personality ribbon.