Fireworks, Neighbors and a 10k

Last night we enjoyed the big firework display for Herndon Festival. They have them on Thursday and a Saturday night of the festival, and both nights the display is pretty amazing but Saturday is certainly larger and more extravagant. The girls favorite are the fireworks with shapes, especially the hearts. Frankly I'm just impressed that you can make something explode in a certain shape. If my brain were so inclined I'd love to learn.

The girls were jazzed for fireworks since Thursday's display and they stayed up all day and night asking NON STOP when it would be time. Seriously at 2pm they were asking, umm ladies we need a little thing called NIGHT TIME! They were exhausted but they rallied. Let's recap, Thursday they stayed up until 10 for the fireworks, Friday they stayed up until 10:30 for the festival, Saturday they woke up at 6:30am and stayed up until 10pm for the fireworks. Fiona was laying on the blanket for the fireworks and I caught her eyes struggling to stay open, and as soon as the booms stopped she was OUT! Luli was still running around even though she was ridiculously tired. But this reminds me of the fact that Luli has two speeds, GO and SLEEP. There is no in between for her!

The fireworks were just another expression of how much I love our house and our neighborhood. Our front lawn has a bit of a slope to it, and frankly it's perfect for laying out a blanket and enjoying the completely unobstructed view of all Herndon Fireworks displays. Several neighbors were walking by and we invited them to pull up some lawn and join us. It was great, it was what I've been wanting from a neighborhood. Impromptu neighbor get togethers, I love it! I put the girls to bed and returned to our neighbors, we chatted for awhile and it was just great. We did stay up a bit late, which was super because Oscar was running the 10k on Sunday morning.

Which brings me to the present. Oscar ran the Herndon Festival 10k this morning. The girls and I went out to cheer him on. Man, another thing I love about our neighborhood! The race was running right by our intersection with the W&OD trail. I brought the girls out with their chairs and we waited for Oscar to come through. We were going to sit right at the end of our street but I figured Oscar would expect us there, and if we were up a little further at the trail it'd be a nice surprise to get through the finish. He did great and we cheered especially loudly for him!


Today we'll probably hit up the festival again to use up our final tickets and indulge in more unnecessary fair food. mmm fried dough!

Herndon Festival 2010

This weekend is the Herndon Festival. I have to tell you that this is yet another reason I love Herndon. The festival is free to enter, which is rare here in VA. The rides do cost tickets and that can run you a pretty penny. Thankfully, the girls are still small and can't ride and don't want to ride, the big ones. But every year we go to these festivals they are more and more interested in the excitement and rides. Last night I had class but Oscar took them. I called home when I was leaving campus (10:15pm) and they were just getting in bed! Luli told me everything they did, which sounded like a lot of fun but I wasn't able to understand her because she was so tired her words were not exactly clear. This morning Oscar wanted to work on the deck and lacked interest in spending another day at the fair. Me on the other hand, I couldn't wait!

The fair opened at 10 and we got there at 11am. We walked in with one of our neighbors who happened to also be going to the fair. We hit the potties and then bee-lined it for the rides. The girls rode all sorts of rides. But I do think the flying dragons were their favorites. Last year they wouldn't even go near the flying dragons at the Herndon Festival, and then at Great Escape in NY they went on a similar ride but wouldn't move the stick to go up and down, so they stayed down the whole time. THIS TIME! WOW, they were up and down more times than I could count.

After several rides, we took a break for lunch. A banana strawberry smoothie and pizza while we listened and danced to the band playing. Then it was back to the rides. Luli wanted to go on the Tiger slide, which was a big bouncy house slide, Fiona was too small so it was Luli-solo. Then we rode the merry go round and then the dragon roller coaster (which was much more gentle and fun than the roller coaster of hell we went on at Great Escape- I think my father and my backs are still sore from that one!). We called it quits after that and sealed the day with an ice cream cone. You could tell they were with me, because we each got our own...if a certain other family member were with us we would have shared.

Now we are looking forward to our front row, front lawn seats to tonight's fireworks display! You can see more of our pictures in our Summer Photo Album to the left.

Herndon Festival

This past weekend was the Herndon Festival. We went three of the four days and had a great time. What a difference a year makes when it comes to fairs and these girls. Last year we went to FunLand in Rehoboth Beach and Luli totally freaked out about getting on rides, and when it came to fireworks at the fourth of July, Fiona clutched me for dear life and wouldn't even look at them. This year both girls wanted to get on the rides (without an adult) and Fiona loved the fireworks that went up on Thursday and Saturday nights. The fair was a great time with lots of rides, vendors and food. It was a real coming together of the town and a lovely show of cultures. We really enjoyed ourselves and felt much more comfortable here than we ever did in South Riding. We just feel at home here and we're so happy to have made the right decision after many months of looking. We are developing a great routine here and meeting lots of friends. I feel a lot happier here and Oscar and I are loving creating our own home. The girls are thrilled with the new house and new neighborhood. I'm amazed with the ease it takes Luli to make new friends. I have so many more posts about our new life but it's late, so they'll wait.