Watermelon Crawl

While I grew up in Missouri, I and my family are originally from a small town in northern Louisiana. It's in an area that has annual festivals for fruits and vegetables. They crown a princess, and the whole town shuts down for the weekend. I LOVE IT! I was only 4 when we moved to Missouri, but as soon as I go back or talk to any of my family, my southern accent comes out, and I miss it. I don't miss the heat or humidity, but I miss the kindness and how it just seems to go at a slower pace, how you don't get strange looks for saying yes ma'am. and no matter what age you are it is still okay to call your mom, momma! I especially missed it while living in St Louis.

The first year I even experienced the Watermelon Festival was in July of 1999. My mammaw (my momma's mom) had just passed away, while we were down visiting, and the funeral home was a block away from all the festivities. So at the end of visitation some of us headed over to wonder around.

I had heard about Watermelon festival. My brother was in the parade as an escort to my cousin, Erin, when they were little kids. I had always wanted to go, my aunt even sent me a shirt every year. While it isn't a big deal to my family... I have to beg in order for them to go, I love it. It is what the south is. For the past two years, my mom and I have loaded up the car and the boys, at the end of July. and made the seven hour drive to Farmerville, Louisiana to watch a parade. You read it right, we only go to the parade, it might be 101 degrees outside, but we will be standing in the shade watching the parade go by. The boys love it just as much as I do.

We left on Thursday morning, in no rush. I can't really rush when I am finishing packing for four people, have to load all the stuff that those four people require, have to get breakfast, gas, and then go and pick up my mom. I felt like a chicken with my head cut off, not to mention that this was the first real trip that the twins were taking since being potty trained in Feburary. I was a little nervous as to how it would all turn out. They did great! We only had to make two stops. Two stops in seven hours!! I was so excited.

Once we arrived at my aunt Bonnie's house, we unloaded and the boys were instantly ready to get in the pool. Being the mean momma that I am, I wanted them to eat first, but after a complete meltdown, I said forget about it! To the pool it is! None of my boys have had swim lessons, so we heavily relied on life jackets and people in the pool. After a hour or so of swimming, we headed in for a quick bite, and went to bed.

On Friday, my cousin Erin and her little adorable son Parker were coming over to spend the day. We lounged around the house, swam, head into "town" for some yummy Johnny's pizza and got our Watermelon Shirts. We made a quick run to Wal Mart, where we turned into complete tourist. My dad is a HUGE Dallas Cowboy fan, and Brandon and I are LSU fans. And the only places you can really get it at a good price is at Wal Mart in Louisiana! So we headed out with 3 outfits for the boys, a shirt for Brandon, 2 shirts and a pair of pants for me, and a shirt for my dad. We headed back to Bonnies, for more swimming with some of my younger cousins, and dinner.

On Saturday we woke up ready to hit the ground running for the parade. It started at 10 so we left the house about 9:15, and got a great spot in the shade. Don't get me wrong, we were in the shade, but there was no breeze, and it was 101 degrees at 10 in the morning. NO LIE!

After about 45 minutes the parade was over, and we headed to walk around for a couple of minutes, until we could justify going to get lunch. We headed into the courthouse, where I found the cutest dresses for my two neices in Alaska. (I'll explain more in a different post)

My mom was craving some fresh shrimp, so we headed to a little seafood joint and had some lunch. Erin and Parker came with us, and my cousin Sheryl and her family joined us a litle bit later. After lunch, we headed back to Bonnies, hoping the boys would take a nap, but were unscuccessful. We headed back outside, to the pool, trampoline, and rode PaPa Jerry's four wheeler. My three boys were in Heaven!

After it cooled off a lot... we headed to the Marion Volunteer Fire Department, where my cousin volunteers, and crawled around on the fire trucks. My cousin Bryan, let the boys crawl up and turn on the lights, honk the horn, just about anything they wanted to do was game! They loved it. We would have stayed longer had it not been 100 degrees at 7:30pm. You've gotta love the southern heat.

Sunday morning we woke up and got ready to head back north. We once again decided that there was no point to being in a rush, so we didn't even get out of the door until 10am. It was 101 degrees. No wonder Brandon refused to go to Law School at LSU. He would've died in the heat.

We tried to be a little efficient, and take a short cut that my family swears by. After driving around for a hour and ending up in a town that should only take us 45 minutes at max to get to, we decided that I had made a wrong turn somewhere, and swore to never EVER go that way again. Why fix something that's not broken?!

We finally pulled into the drive way around 7 that night. We were tired but starving, so off to eat we headed. The kids passed out on the way home, and I was out like a light shortly thereafter. I am so glad we went, but I forgot how much it wears me out! Can't wait until next year!

I forgot to load the album before I started blogging, so you can check out the pictures from our trip here!