Hometown Date: The Strawberry Festival

This post is a few days behind real time, but I had such a fun day, I had to come back to it! And while this hometown date took place a couple of weeks ago, this week's podcast takes you with us to MORE hometown fun this weekend. I think you'll enjoy it!

Click to listen.

A new town means all new festivals to learn, and our first was the Strawberry Festival. How great is it when ANY town has a strawberry festival!!!!???? That's about the happiest place to be.

Apparently the item to have in the Kokomo Strawberry Festival is the strawberry shortcake. {Of course!} And last year, we heard they sold out of them by the afternoon, so Ryan declared we needed a strategy for this thing!

The festival took place on a Friday, and he was at work, but one of his co-workers had the day off, so she graciously invited me to join her and her two kiddos for an early visit to the festival. I didn't ask if I could use those pictures, so I won't, but I will tell you that her kids are a delight. My favorite part was when we got in line for the shortcake, and her little girl thought we were going to see Strawberry Shortcake: the character. That was kind of a disappointment for her when she figured out we were only getting food!

We were on the courthouse square, with approximately half the county, lined up for fresh strawberries, homemade Amish shortcakes, and scoops of ice cream. {All of that was, by the way, completely worth the wait in line.}

{The white tent straight ahead was the shortcake hub. There was a line coming from the other side, too! And this was when it first opened!}

Amanda and I got a whole bunch of shortcakes to take back to the hospital for those who couldn't get out to attend in person!

Delicious, by the way. Not as huge as the ones from Ivanhoe's, but most flavorful!!

After Ryan got off work, we headed back downtown for the evening portion of the festival. This year the festival coincided with the First Friday fun, so it was a good evening to be out. And the weather was lovely!

When I had been there earlier in the day with Amanda, I saw this sign, which I knew Ryan would be SO EXCITED to see!

We really like Hawg Heaven! We first had it on the Fourth of July  a couple of years ago, and it is absolutely delicious.

We got to sit with some friends of ours that we happened to run into, caught up with them, and ate some fabulous pork. {Kudos to Hawg Heaven for having clean tables and chairs for their customers to enjoy!}

After dinner? Dessert! We were excited about that. When I was growing up, we lived next door to a family that had a couple of kids near my age. One of them, a boy, was my same age, and he has grown up to be a minister, husband, and dad of five kids! He and his family are traveling evangelists now, and as a side job, they do snow cones at festivals. They had their booth set up, and we were happy to support them and enjoy a treat!

We sat on the courthouse steps and ate our snow cones while we listened to music from the stage:

It was a fun little evening, and I think we should make it an annual tradition!