down town Ice Festival

There are a few things that our local down town historic area does that I try never to miss. One of those is their arts and craft show in July, another is their antique car show in August. Then, of course, is the U Ice Festival in February. Nothing screams "Come on out and enjoy the day" more than blisteringly cold temperatures, mountains of snow and slush and howling winds. But its not something that I care to pass up. And this year, PorkChop was finally old enough (and it wasn't quite cold enough to miss) to go!

Because we did wait until our "nice day" this weekend, we ended up coming at the end of the festival weekend. Which meant that some of the sculptures had already been destroyed by bratty, bored "away from the city" kids, the games were already all taken down/broke (since the games are made of ice, like everything else) and it meant that we didn't get to see any sculpting being done. But it also meant that it was less crowded, that it was easier to find a place to sit to watch the magician and that waiting for a cup of hot chocolate took decidedly less time than normal.

Porker looks like Lightning McQueen! lol

This year's theme was "Wonderful World of Disney". We got to see Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, tons of Mickeys and Minnies, a few Donalds, a Goofy.... There was Bambi, Rapunzel and Jasmine.... A giant grasshopper and some beautiful beta inspired fish. Hubby geeked himself out and was super excited to see Darth Vader and the millenium falcon (and R2D2). I was impressed to see the castle done up and even managed to convince SweetPea to pose in front of it for me.

SweetPea had fun watching the mentalist perform (and daddy was nice enough to volunteer to help him). PorkChop enjoyed the time indoors with his chocolate chip cookie and sips of sissy's hot cocoa. We convinced SweetPea to take part in the frozen fish toss but failed to explain to her that fish can be sharp. We have now got to listen to her all day tell EVERYONE that we come across about how the fish grew teeth in its spine and bit her (sometimes, I think that its only my child that can cut herself on a frozen fish). I was a little disappointed that neither of my littles wanted to go on a carriage ride so I will just save doing that for another time.

All in all, I am so thankful that we had the chance to attend this year. Last year, the temperature was just way too cold to bundle up a tiny PorkChop and I really missed the opportunity. This year, thanks to a toddler and a mild winter day, I got to be a happy camper.