The Strawberry Festival

We're going to do some major backtracking here, because, as I mentioned, our March was super duper busy and I sort of dropped the ball on the "timely blog posts" front for the majority of the month. Now, life seems to be slowing down a bit: the case I've been working on is selecting a jury this week so my work should be winding down, today is April 15 (did you file your taxes?) so Eric is about done with his H&R Block job, Ellie's birthday and Easter are behind us. The cold Ellie has been fighting for weeks also seems to be making its exit (halleluia, we can all sleep again). In short, we can all take a breath now, and this week I plan on going back and picking up on the things that I couldn't get to in the midst of the craziness.

So, today we go back to the first week of March, when we spent one of Eric's days off at the Florida Strawberry Festival. We had so much fun at the State Fair, and Ellie is a known strawberry enthusiast, so we knew we had to go. She even dressed the part:

Sporting her strawberry finest for the occasion

And so, off we went on a lovely March afternoon. We had no traffic issues, found cheap parking, and got the fun started.

This girl is clearly the queen of the Strawberry Festival.

Our first stop upon arrival was the pig race, but we were too late to get much a view. Still, love those pigs.

Eric and Elie trying to get a look at the racing pigs

There goes one!

Sweet baby holding on to her daddy in the crowd

Then, it was time to get down to business. We needed shortcake. Obviously, it didn't take much effort to find a place serving up such a thing, so I got one to share with Ellie. She loved it! That's my girl.

Shortcake!

Because Eric is a weirdo who does not like strawberry shortcake, we stopped for a funnel cake for him before continuing to just wander around. We walked past all the rides, and Ellie was particularly taken with the swing ride, which I assume looked to her like a big people-moving ceiling fan (one of her most favorite things in the world at the time).

Left: Eric gracefully consuming a funnel cake; Right: Ellie and me amongst the rides

Midway

Ellie very excitedly showing me her favorite ride

Throughout the afternoon, there was lots of fun to be had with strawberry-themed photo ops. And we are not people to pass up a photo op, am I right?

Left: My baby sitting in a giant strawberry throne; Right: apparently pigs eat strawberries?

Ellie and Daddy as strawberries

Sweet Ellie as a little white flower!

The gang's all here!

The other big event we made sure to check out was the jumping dog show. We arrived in plenty of time for this one and were able to get a good seat, where Ellie spent the half hour leading up to the show charming the people behind us. Then, when the show began, she was quite excited. She is a big fan of dogs so she was smiling and exclaiming and pointing like crazy as they did their tricks.

Hanging out with Daddy before the show

Waving to the dogs!

This dog just wanted somebody to throw the frisbee already.

So excited about the dogs!

I'll bet these dogs think they're fancy.

Jump-roping dog

Dogs long-jumping into a pool of water

Let me at those doggies!!!

After the dog show we did a little more wandering around and then made our way out. It was a beautiful afternoon and we had a great time - definitely a nice way to spend a March afternoon!

Family fun at the Strawberry Festival!