Life in a small town

I love living in Cleveland. As of next month we will have been here for eight years. We have a total of two traffic lights in the city limits, and sometimes we even have to wait through two changes of the light on a Friday when all the Helen go-ers are trying to get to "the mountains" for the weekend. (Perhaps I will discuss the town of Helen in another post.) Small town living suits me and James, and I like that our kids will be raised here. As a child I remember my folks saying maybe we should just move up here (my dad's parents are from Cleveland so we visited relatives here while I was growing up), and I recall being horrified at the thought. It's so SMALL and COUNTRY! The irony.

Today was the Fall Leaf Festival in town. There were booths and food and all kinds of festivalish things. It was also the 25th anniversary of the Cabbage Patch kids, so there was a big shindig at Babyland General (the big tourist trap, er, sacred birthplace of the Cabbage Patch babies). I remember when they were the hot toy that Christmas and parents everywhere were getting into the spirit of celebrating Jesus' birth by clobbering each other in toy stores to get the last doll on the shelf. Wow, where did 25 years go?

Becky, who worked at the barn this summer and has pretty much been to the barn every day since the summer ended, thought it would be fun to take Strong Rock horses to the parade. It was part of the festival, and Strong Rock was well represented. I didn't get to ride but I did take the kids and got some pictures.

Kids carried three Strong Rock flags, including the Awahili and Waya flags, which represent the two tribes at camp. (You are cordially invited to come see camp in action next summer, if you have no idea what I'm talking about.) The rider in the background is Mali, who also worked at the barn this summer. She's riding Kiefer, one of the Strong Rock horses.
This is Becky (in the green shirt) on Jasmine, and on the left is Susan on her horse Pascal. She is the one who is giving me riding lessons, and came along to ride on behalf of SR just for fun. The horse on the far right is being ridden by a guy we've never met before who jumped right into the Strong Rock group. Guess next year we'll bring some extra shirts, in case strangers want to help represent us again.
One of the requirements for riding in the parade was that you provide a pooper scooper. This is Becky's husband Rick, who is a very good sport! I think more pictures were taken of him today than of the horses.
Here are my kids at the parade with our friend Rebecca Avra. She volunteered her Saturday morning to help me "herd cats," i.e. keep the kids out of traffic. Rebecca is our office manager at camp. She is also responsible for the founding of our Thursday night dinner group, which started as an accountability group amongst some of us girls.
Elizabeth was very excited about her first parade.

You never know what you'll see in a small town parade, but I thought a few of these pictures pretty well represented it.


They were throwing candy from this car. I wondered if we dared to eat it. (In case you can't read it, it says "STOP SPREADING HUMAN WASTE.") The thing that would have made it perfect is if they were throwing unwrapped Baby Ruths. :)

Another shot of the car, which says "STOP SPREADING THE FUNK."

Here's a bigger-than-life sized set of the Ten Commandments.
I believe we have been patrons of the Thomas Deer Cooler. I was hoping they would be throwing deer sausage and roasts out the window. I brought my cooler.

My kids thought it was amazing that people would throw perfectly good candy out on the sidewalk. We came home with a big bag full of it.

The town of Clermont, just down the road from us (where we go to church) had their big annual celebration today as well. It was still going strong this evening when we got to the home of our friends the Pittman's from church for a Sunday School social. The best part was a huge fireworks show, which lasted about 10 minutes and was right across the street from the Pittman's home.

It's been another good day, and we're off to church in the morning. We have to leave by 8:00 to get there on time for the early service, no easy feat with four little ones. My mom and dad are coming to visit tomorrow, and I also have a riding lesson tomorrow afternoon. James and my dad are going to get up the hay we had cut off of our pasture (about 600 bales- with the help of some others, we hope!).

One last picture, just for fun, because you never know what you're going to see when you leave Elizabeth in a room with Amelia.

Yep, I did this!