This past weekend 9 young people gathered at the van t' Voort's house in big ol' Iona Station for a camping weekend. However, when I found out that we wouldn't necessarily HAVE to sleep outside - that there were beds upstairs that had been made available, I jumped at the opportunity to stay warm and dry and comfortable. It was wonderous. It took me awhile to get to Hamilton to pick up Niki because of some crazy bad traffic (50 minutes to get from one side of St Catharines to the other), but we still managed to be the first people there at 9:00 at night. We just chilled as we waited for the others to arrive and then watched a classic movie: The Princess Bride. I was so sleepy, my eyes closed at around the storming of the castle part and then opened when the closing credits came on the screen. There was no way I was going to stay awake for Janna's arrival at 2 in the morning.
On Saturday we got to sleep in and enjoy a great breakfast of sausage and pancakes, made and cooked by Mike's youngest sister (and apparently one of "us"), Elizabeth (aka Fizz). So yum. We then headed out to the Wallacetown Fair to check out the midway, the cattle parade, and see Mike actually drive in the town's parade in his '71 Chevy convertible. We split up into two groups - the boys and the girls for a very fun Photo Scavenger Hunt. The girls had a lot of fun with it - meeting so many people who were so willing to help us out. We met one guy who was leading one of the games at the Midway who helped us out with the winning of prizes - $3 cheaper than the usual price, provided props for the leap-frogging picture and got his jester hat from his car so that we could get extra points for singing to a clown. In the junior fair barn, I was assigned the role of pretending to be paparazzi at the baby show. We asked a few people who were dressed in authentic cowboy gear to pose with us. When we took a break for lunch, we sat on a bench along the wall of one of the barns which happened to be right behind one of the food stands. We got to talking with a husband and wife who were peeling and cutting the potatoes into fries and he thought of a great prank he wanted to pull on his coworkers. He went in and got a couple of fry boxes, filled them with uncooked fries and asked Niki and I to go around to the front, explain to the seller that we had received these fries wholesale and ask if he would be so kind as to fry them for us. He took it so well that not only did he take our containers, he gave us fresh fries and asked the next customer who wanted fries if he preferred them raw or cooked. Very funny! :) Later, we got more people involved when we asked them to help us spell a word with extra points awarded for every extra person we included.
I realized that I forgot an important story of the afternoon! While six of us piled back into Mike's car, I thought out loud - Wouldn't it be funny to go back around the parade route in front of the band stand in the antique car? Mike thought so, too as he drove us around the track that had carried all the "dignitaries" earlier that day. I began waving like the Queen, because, well - who wouldn't? An antique car. A convertible. A sunny day. And a bandstand at a fair to wave to. The announcer was thanking some of the fair's sponsors when we drove by, waving like princesses. The crowd waved back and I think that I even heard a few cheers and definitely saw lots of smiles! Mid-sentence, the announcer paused to look up and see what all the ruckus was about and said into the microphone, "Well. That was random." The crowd chuckled while we were in stitches laughing about how we had created our very own one car parade. It could have been just my imagination but I think that everyone at the fair knew who we were by the end of the afternoon! :)
We went back to van t' Voort's for supper and relaxation time, but not too long as we needed to be back for 6:45 for the tractor pull. Considering this was my first experience ever at an agricultural fair, I had a LOT of fun! I think the Photo hunt helped. When the tractor pull was over (a few hours longer than I had originally anticipated), we headed back to the house for a campfire, some singing and drinking of warm beverages. While the crazy people decided to camp outside, I was already very chilly, so I slept in the house.
On Sunday we went to the OPC in Dutton for their morning service and enjoyed a lovely potluck for lunch. After a quick stop back at the house to gather all of our worldly possessions, we packed it all in our cars and some of continued on to the Life Chain event in London - holding signs for a silent protest against abortion.
What a fantastic weekend! Pictures to follow.
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