Applefest 2012

Well, helloooooo there! Long time, no post. Sorry about that....eek. Anyways, we've started off fall with a blast! Every year my parents' hometown area holds an Applefest, because, you guessed it, the area is know for its amazing apples. The hills are full of orchards and, come September, the little town of Gays Mills, Wisconsin grows exponentially in size with visitors. There is a parade, fair, flea market (!), and tons of apples.

 We started off the weekend by taking part in the run. Ali was not too sure about being out and about that early on a cold morning.

But once she found her cousin, she was ready to go. Check out the game faces on these two.

See Ali in the photo below, bottom right? You can see #419 on her shirt. What a little bugger!

Haddie and Libbie had this racing thing down and took right off.

Alora needed a little coaxing...

But she did finish.

Last.

Lol! Her incentive to keep going was to find her cousins!

My dad and I did the run together. Well, the first mile anyway. I turned at the 1 mile mark since I only did the 2 mile run. But my dad went on for the 5 mile. That's right, my dad can totally outrun me.

Overall, I finished 27th out of 75, so I was pretty happy with that. I haven't run a race for a loooong time and I'm just lately getting back into running.  But I was reminded how much easier it is to run with you're not pushing a giant stroller and dragging a giant dog (I must look like a train wreck when I run at the park!).

The really cool part was that we ALL ended up placing. My dad got 1st in his age group. My cousin Katie got 1st place for women's overall! I got 2nd in my age group. Haddie got 1st in her age group. Libbie came in second and Alora 3rd in their group. (We won't mention that there were only three in her age group, haha!)

Overall, I'd say the Showen family was fairly well represented!

And it was pretty neat that Alora got to run in her first race with her Papa, just like I did.

After our morning run, we decided to hit up the fair. Alora rode her first merry-go-round and LOVED it.  She was a little uncertain at first, but was petting the horse and talked to him for a while. Then they were the best of friends.

And as soon as she said "bye-bye horsie" she was dragging Jake to the roller coaster!

Ah! This photo kills me with her peeking over the handle, snug in her daddy's arms.

Then it was on to the cars. Somehow I "got to" go on this one with her, too. Lucky me.

We spend the rest of the day wandering the flea market with Jake, his mom and my dad, who says he finished the majority of his Christmas shopping... I can only imagine.  He also impressed one of the vendors with his one-man-band playing skills. After digging through all of the treasures, we headed back to the cabin for a HUGE family dinner.

 Sunday was another fun packed day. We hit the orchards in the morning and stocked up on apple cider, apple turnovers, apple pie and, my favorite, apple cider donuts. Yummm!! Oh yeah, we got some apples, too. And we treated ourselves to some "gourmet" caramel apples, made to order. We got one dipped in M&M's and one dipped in Kit-Kat. In a word: amazing.

 And, as if the weekend wasn't full enough already, we jammed in a parade, too. Alora got to see her cousin Tayah. I'm pretty sure I know who Ali wants to be when she grows up: Tayah. She was absolutely smitten with her! This photo says it all. Too cute. And Tayah was such a sweetie and treated Ali to purple a toy cat just like her pink one. Let's just say it is not a treasured toy.

Tayha and my other cousins, Jessica and Jolene (yes, there were a lot of cousins around this weekend) took Alora under their wings and taught her the golden rule of parades: 

smiles + waves = lots of candy.

And smile and wave she did.

 Check out that stash by her feet! This girl was on fire! I let her have a sucker for her hard work. It was her first and she was a fan.

Aside from the good times, we also had a major brawl. Just check out the firsts on these girls!

I'm kidding of course. But we couldn't resist a photo of Alora and Libbie with their battle wounds from the weekend. Alora did a face plant when her legs decided not to keep up with her body as she was running down a hill and Libbie thought she might see what the floor tasted like from the distance of a chair. Poor kidos. Fortunately a little parade candy and it's all forgotten. 

 

It was SO much fun to spend time with SO many members of our family, all in one of the most beautiful areas of the country.  We got to relax, explore and make some great memories.

 And now I'll leave you with this shot - fresh apple pie! You can practically see my dad saying "Oohh, oohh ohh" in his Tim Taylor grunt. Enjoy!