This weekend was a long one thanks to ole Mr. Columbus.

We set out on Friday morning to make the trip to visit my parents.  Dora in the DVD player: check.  Snacks for the baby: check.  Let's hit the road!
Along the way, we stopped to visit:

Not literally of course. Some good friends of ours were Stateside from Australia and we were fortunate enough to get to have lunch with them during their trip. Two sad things happened that day though: We forgot our camera (boo!) and we didn’t get to spend more time with them. Hopefully, Naomi can remedy the first one and share some of her pictures with us.

Once we made it to the land of peanuts (a.k.a my hometown), it was time for our yearly tradition:

I can only remember one time in my life that I have missed this festival and that was solely because I had a 2 month old infant at the time.  It was a tradition when I was a kid and we are working hard to make it a tradition for our kids.

One of H's favorite things is the demolition derby (did I mention that this festival is held in the Southern part of the state?  Did I need too once I used the words demolition derby?)

Another treat - Fair Food!  In our two trips to the festival, we managed to consume: pizza, chicken fingers, cheese steaks, Spuds fries, Gyro, Slouvaki, cinnamon almonds, funnel cake and beef jerky.  Oh, and who could forget the turkey legs too!

Once we were done with all our gorging eating of the festival food, it was ride time!  I know a 4 year old who loves her rides.

We also got the treat of fireworks on Saturday night.  Sadly, they didn't come with the treat of my phone actually working to take pictures of them!

During all of our fun, we had to pause for some extremely sad news.  Mathlete's uncle passed away on Saturday evening.  Our plans quickly shifted to ensure that we were able to be there to support Mathlete's parents.
Since we ended up cutting our trip a little short, on Sunday, we gave H a treat she has been waiting for since she was born turned four: a booster seat.

She's not excited at all.

We finished out our long weekend with a cupcake tasting (thanks to Liz and her fabulous baking skills!) for the adults and cookies for the kids.

And so the sun sets on our long, holiday weekend.

Did you get a long weekend too?  Do anything exciting like see the world's smallest horse or watch cars ram each other?  Have a love of peanuts?  If so, I have the festival for you!