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!

The Shafferland Shuffle

Jessica Chance, you're the winner of the I Don't Wait Anymore giveaway! I've sent an email to you to get your address so we can get that delivered to you! Thanks so much for entereing! 

* Last Sunday was our first day without Miss Phoebe, and I scarcely knew what to do with myself! Ryan brought me coffee so I could ease into the day while I got ready for church. Kind husband, he is. We had a good, restful afternoon, and I even enjoyed some time in the hammock, imagining I was on a boat, since I was reading all these posts from my friends who were at the lake for a weekend! Ryan and I were outside later that day and found a frog/toad/WHATEVER hoppy thing lurking outside our garage door. SHIVER!!!!!!!

* Monday was Memorial Day, which meant Ryan worked like a normal day. I chose to do my normal work too, since I felt guilty taking a holiday if he didn't get one. But I did insist that we have SOMETHING of a holiday meal that night, so we did our first hot dog roast in our fire pit! We rested in the hammock together, went for a long walk, and ended the night with some sparkler fun. It was a good night!

* Tuesday was so pretty, and Ryan and I wanted to eat lunch on the porch - but look what joined us! Another hoppy thing. What in the world!?!?!? That evening we went to the viewing of one of his former patients, and while we were in the little town for that, I found these silos that I thought we should buy and turn into our OWN Magnolia silos! LOL!! We had just enough time, when we got home, for Ryan to put up this sconce that he found for the crowning touch on our "clock tower."

* Couldn't believe that Wednesday brought in the month of JUNE already! I worked hard all day {all week, actually} on writing projects, and Braeya joined me, because eating erasers is a helpful writing tool, right? That evening, we enjoyed a particularly stunning sunset. There have been many of those this week too, but we really enjoyed this one!

* Thursday was our monthiversary, and while it was possibly one of my worst hair days and not one of our best life-days overall, we still managed to enjoy our evening date...dinner out at Ryan's favorite of Buffalo Wild Wings, a little bit of coffee, and some shopping. Those things tend to make up for a bad day!! Thankful for 42 months of life together. Even on hard days, at least I have a great teammate in my corner!

* So it turns out Kokomo has a strawberry festival, and it was this past Friday! I went during the day, along with one of Ryan's co-workers, to get strawberry shortcakes for all of his department, before the festival sold out. {They did that last year.} Then Friday night, Ryan and I went back to enjoy the festival for ourselves. We got some delicious BBQ for dinner, and we even had a little shaved ice treat at the tent of some friends of mine!

* Ryan worked all day yesterday and as soon as we got home, we had to head out for "Fake Father's Day." His family always has a HUGE Father's Day bash, but this year, some of the group had a conflict on the day, so they moved Father's Day up by two weeks! It rained all day, but not long after the shindig started, the rain cleared up and the sun even made an appearance! And guess who else made an appearance!?!? PHOEBE!!! We got to take her with us for the evening. Such fun!