Heritage Arts and Crafts Festival

September, 18, 2010

Knowing this would be our last year in Missouri, the Heritage Arts and Crafts Festival was high on my list of "MUST ATTEND". These folks do it up in style. They have something for everyone and indeed, we all have a great time!

My never-ending attempt to get a family photo.  Notice only one person was actually looking at the camera.  Gotta love em!

This is always Derek's favorite activity.

They have a whole bunch of children's activities.  Milking the cows (above), finding "needles" (aka Popsicle sticks) in the haystack,

Printing press,

Not sure what this is called, but the kids love it.  You put a button on a string, then swing it around and around until the string curls up, then pull on both ends and watch it curl back up again and again.  This was a pioneer game that has been passed down the generations.

Visiting the farm animals.

They have a whole section full of pioneer life and folks dressed up in period attire. I love stepping back in time!

Here are Tanner and Lexie panning for gold!

I hope you don't mind if I share a few details with you.

 

This man was just sitting there playing his guitar so nicely, so I took his picture.  But no sooner had I snapped the shot, then a bunch of kids happened to walk by.  He stood up and began to do magic tricks with them.  He had the lot of them completely captivated and spellbound by his tricks.  My kids were amongst his crowd and Tanner was watching him like a hawk.  He was trying to figure out how this guy was doing his tricks!  Well, the man had the kids convinced that they each had a bit of magic in them.  He'd pull a quarter out of their ear, or something similar one by one just to show them he was right.  He did this with each of the children until he got to Tanner.  And to my bright boy (who was just dying to catch this guy in his act) he said, "there's no magic left in you, you're too old". And that was that.  All the kids dispersed and the magician returned to his guitar. Tanner never got his chance to catch him at his  trickery!  What a brilliant man!

Riding the hay ride!

The woodworker's Association always sets up a booth for the kids.  They have wooden cars they give the children and let them install the wheels. Then they can color their car and take it home.  It is a labor of love.  One year Lexie made one of these cars and gave it to her cousin Benson for Christmas. The kids always look forward to making their own car when we come.

While we were there we ran into our very dear friends Noah and Emma.  These kids might as well be brothers and sisters.  They see each other nearly every day and live to be together.

By the likes of this dirty face, you can tell, we had a marvelous time at the Heritage Arts and Crafts Festival!  It is a part of Missouri I wish I could package up bring with me wherever we may go.