Sterlingfest and the rest of the weekend

We spent Saturday at our local community fall festival, Sterlingfest. We've lived here four years and this is the first year we've gone. The festival is always set up near our local firehouse and shops. The firehouse was having a HUGE open house, which Stasa absolutely loved. They must have gotten almost all of the volunteer firefighters in Sterling - there were so many and so many engines and even a big ladder truck. They let her get on one of the fire engines, sit in the driver's seat, climb aboard the ambulance, and even gave her some sterile gloves. Doesn't sound like much, but it's heaven for an almost four year old.


They also did some pretty neat fire safety demonstrations and in one they set a car on fire, hosed it down, then used the jaws of life to open it up. Later that night Stasa told us that next time we need to bring the firefighters some tape so they can fix the car when they're done. Oh and Stasa insisted on wearing her fire helmet I got at the craft fair at Occoquan. The firefighters commented that we were far from home when they saw her helmet. As soon as they learned that we live close by, they rushed to get her new hats with their name on it. So now the girls are rich in fire helmets.






They also had a smoke house maze for the kids. It was really dark in the maze and at first I didn't think Stasa would do it, but after a moment of hesitation she ran in and found her way around and out the other end. Then she did it again and again and again and again. I was really impressed with everything the firehouse put together for the kids. They really outdid themselves and it's something we'll be going to every year. PLUS the firefighters all said that we're welcome to visit any time and if they don't have an emergency they'll walk the kids through all of the equipment and would even get geared up for them. So nice.


Sunday we went out to Tom's brother Peter's house in Winchester to hang out with the family. And to celebrate three birthdays. October is a busy month for us. The girls were caked out and passed out for the night on the ride home. Of course, since Stasa fell asleep so early, she was up around 4ish this morning and WIRED. We found her in her room watching Disney videos on my iPad (yeah, she knows how to work the whole thing).

Thursday is Tom's birthday and I think we'll be keeping it low key with just dinner with the girls. I'm going to take both girls out to the dollar aisle at Target and let them pick a few things for him. Last year Stasa chose a pink football, some breast cancer awareness decorations, candy, and an iTunes card. I'm sure he'll make out like a bandit this year, too.

The Herndon Festival

Tom and I decided to take Stasa to the Herndon Festival on Saturday. We slathered her up in sunscreen, threw on her sunhat and drove off to the festival. We knew it was going to be crowded before we even got there - Elden St. was backed up all the way to the road from our house. Yikes! So we turned off and parked at a Catholic Church (after giving a donation, of course) and then hiked a few blocks to the festival. It was PACKED. Elbows to buttholes, as Tom would like to say.

We checked out some of the craft tents and then got in line for some food. We saw a bunch of people walking around with huge plates of butterfly fries and we originally wanted those, but while we were standing in line we saw someone walk by with the nachos platter. We both immediately changed our orders.

After eating our ginormous nachos platters (I didn't quite finish mine), we checked out the rest of the craft tents. I was kind of disappointed that we didn't see anything I was remotely interested in buying. Once we had seen all of the open craft tents, we decided to head home and get Stasa to bed.

On our way in to the festival

People watching

Where we got our food (you've got to love carnival food)

The nachos platter, complete with nachos, cheese, beans, ranch, salsa and fries (they come with a choice of beef, lamb, pork or chicken). Oh, and this is already half eaten.