Peach Days!

Our town does this fun celebration every year called Peach Days. I had never heard about it until we moved here, but apparently it is a huge deal, and people come from all over the place to celebrate. It is a week long thing with concerts and sales, and booths, a car show, a motorcycle show, a HUGE parade, games, rides, Oh, and of course PEACHES! There are peaches everywhere. Everything you buy to eat is either made out of peaches, peach flavored, looks like a peach, smells like a peach, or something. It is a little bit out of control, but it is so much fun. It is the oldest celebration of it's kind in Utah. It is only our second year celebrating Peach Days, but already we are establishing some traditions. Those of you who know me know that I am crazy about town events and traditions, so this is awesome to me. I am going to give you a short rundown of events. It's a little late coming, but I shot a wedding on Friday, and I made myself get the pictures cropped and shipped before I could blog. I finished this morning, Whew, I almost had blog withdrawls:)

The whole week of Peach Days the Library has a book sale. There are THOUSANDS of used books. Some pretty new, some pretty old, all in pretty good shape. They are really cheap, I picked up 23 new books for the kids and I for less than $20 a Steal right! I was excited. That is actually my very favorite part of Peach Week.

There were other celebrations, concerts, an art show, and photo contest, and crowning of peach royalty etc. We did some of it, but skipped most of it this year. Then Friday is when the real fun starts. All day at school the kids do peach related activities, and then on Friday night there is a Kiddy parade where there are some floats, and all of the schools get to be in the parade. Then when it's over they shut down main street, and have free games and activities in the street. I had to miss it this year because I was working, but Troy and the kids went and had a blast. Of course they didn't get any pictures, but they told me so many stories about it when I got home I feel like I was there.

Saturday we woke up bright and early (Not because we needed to, the parade didn't start until 10, and we already had our seats saved, but the kids couldn't pretend to sleep any longer, they were so excited for the festivities, -and I think, still hyped up on the sugar from the night before.) We went to main street where some friends of ours had saved us some seats and waited for the parade to start. There was a 10K(?) run, and we cheered on all of the runners, some of who were spectacular. One guy was 100 years old and had run in the race every year since he was 12! There were a lot of people who were running pushing strollers, and that gave Troy and I the idea that we are going to start training, and run next year... we'll see, but it sounds good anyway.

Then finally the parade started. Now, I am used to La Sal parades where there are about seven people in the parade, they go from the store to the school (about 1/4 mile) and then turn around and go back to make the parade last longer. The whole thing is done in about 10 minutes, and then you go home. Not being a huge fan of the parade myself, that is about perfect for me. The Peach Days Parade is NOT like that. It lasts between two and a half to three hours, and there is like two hundred and something floats. IT'S THE PARADE THAT WILL NOT END!!!!!!!! But, we had a good seat, and everyone but Adia and me had a pretty good time. (She has about the same attention span as her mother:) Here are a few of the pictures from our spectacular parade experience.

I don't have many good pictures of Adia during the parade. She mostly just sat her little self down on the curb and ate whatever candy was thrown her way. occasionally she would stand up and dance, and sometimes, when the candy stash was running low she would run chase some down, but mostly she just sat and ate, and ate, and ate.


This poor little guy was the "official Peach Days Pooper Scooper" he kept riding back and forth along the parade route scooping the poop so that unsuspecting marching band members, and performing drill teamers didn't pick up any extra baggage. He was pretty cute, when he would finish he would take a big bow, and everyone would applaud.

This one doesn't even need commentary...

"What," you might ask "is this? Could it be a rather large woman in a rather small mini skirt rollerblading along the street, feeling the breeze as she shows young children her hiney?" Yes, in fact, it is! Actually there was an entire group of people exactly like her. Wow, I bet you are sorry you missed that! Lucky for you, I was on the job, never missing a moment of the stuff you were dieing to see.The first five minutes of the parade consisted of every fire truck within a 50 mile radius driving down the street with their sirens blaring. Some of you might think this would be a little annoying, and I might agree, but Ethan is experiencing Parade BLISS! (That is a happy face, in case you were wondering. My face wasn't, that's why I TAKE the pictures)
More Bliss

Adia likes parades as much as I do.

After that was over we went and got a bite to eat. Troy and the kids had hot dogs, funnel cakes (topped with peaches) Peach Soda, and "peachcicles". I had this yummy peach pulled pork, and peach fritters. It was all GOOD!








Then we went to the carnival and the kids rode rides.

Ethan was in this bug car waiting for the ride to start when a little girl we don't know asked if she could sit by him. Always happy to make new friends, he quickly agreed. He was so cute with her, he put his arm around her when she was scared, and when the ride was over he helped her out of the car, and held her hand until they found her dad. What a Romeo...



When that fun was over we walked around and looked at the booths, and then walked down farther and saw the car show. It was awesome. There were over 800 cars there, and they were BEAUTIFUL! There aren't any pictures though because by then our arms were filled with candy, treats, toys, and sleeping kids.







We went back to the car, and went home. We were all exhausted, so we lounged out and slept off our "peach hangovers" The celebrations went until midnight that night, and we considered going back, but decided that we were peached out by then, and spent a quiet evening at home...sort of.

Troy bumped the sprinkler system when he was mowing the lawn, and then "fixed" it good, and we ended up with a geyser in the front yard. Ethan ran up to troy and yelled "Hurry dad, call a plumber" (Part of Troy's job is plumbing... I don't know what our kids think he does all day) Anyway, it was pretty easily fixed, and no real harm was done. And after THAT we lived happily ever after...until bath time...