Red Poppy Festival 2011

Ah, the annual Red Poppy Festival. Between this, the Fourth of July in the park and the Christmas Stroll, I am hard pressed to pick my favorite Georgetown event.

I guess the Christmas Stroll has the Main Street Bethlehem and Fourth of July has fireworks, but the Red Poppy Festival is uniquely Georgetown and I love that a substantial portion of the town shows up for it.

Including our friends Scott, Helen and Andrew.

Due to a contractor working in our kitchen and an early nap by Jack, we arrived later than we had hoped and Andrew had already been there for several hours, watching the parade and getting his face painted, among other things.

We did manage to time our arrival such that Andrew was ready to play in the kid's zone and that was just what Sydney and Jack wanted to do.

After the ride and the bouncers, Sydney was sad to realize that mostly the Red Poppy Festival involves walking around and looking at booth after booth of things that a little girl finds very boring.

Happily, there is a new toy store on the square and for a mere $5 per child, you can sit in their back area and play with all of the toys they have for sale completely guilt-free.

Even the grown-ups thought this was a great plan and after Helen, Jeremy and I got back from looking at the other booths, we got to play, too.

I know that the Red Poppy Festival is not Sydney's idea of fun, but I really do think it's an important part of her childhood... the sense of community, the exposure to so many local artisans, the walking around a downtown that is void of cars, except for the auto show participants. And I truly believe that someday she will look back and be so very happy that she had experiences like the ones she had today.

At least I hope so.