Sweet Corn Festival



I never did blog about the Sweet Corn Festival itself, where everyone drips with butter (if you don't believe me, check out this quote about the corn from the Village of Millersport's website: "Dripping with butter, the children and adults alike devour it with earnest enjoyment and utter delight.")

It rained Wednesday, but the rain stopped in time for the parade. As we live right on the parade route (much to the delight of our children), we invited the church members to our house to watch the parade, and there were about 25-30 who showed up. We served watermelon and provided the place to watch the festivities (lots of bands, lots of queens from other festivals, and lots of the usual parade entries, including one from our church).

The festival itself is full of fundraising food booths. Non-profits (especially the local school and lots of churches) staff the booths and provide the food. It's hard to walk around and not see people we know, even when we've only been here a few months. The Little Blessings Preschool (our church's preschool, where Jonathan will be starting school today) had a booth selling pizza, which our kids enjoyed.

For Jonathan and Andrew, the fun was the gift they were given Thursday evening: wristbands for the midway rides...

The "Kids Town" funhouse was a favorite of both boys. They went through again and again.

The canoes were the first "ride" they went on. Jonathan was nervous at first, but then he really enjoyed it. The same can't be said for the little roller coaster, which terrified him.

I was really proud of him, though, because after the roller coaster debacle, he was still willing to ride more rides. He loved riding in the tiger and the fish (Andrew especially liked the fish).

Then they found the train. They had fun on the train... for the first 45 minutes. OK, so the ride wasn't that long, but it seemed like it. Jonathan got bored and started asking us when he could get off. And still they went around and around and around. We started complaining and asking the guy to STOP THE TRAIN! and he finally did, at which time all the parents clapped.

Finally it was time to go home in the wagon. Our boys had a great time!

Are You Faster Than a Pastor?

In the midst of our town's Sweet Corn Festival, there is (the centerpiece, in my mind) a 5K road race, the Ken Keener Classic. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon the "brilliant" idea to challenge the congregation to race me. Well, it wasn't really a challenge as much as a chance to do something in the community and invite others to participate. I asked the question "Are you faster than a pastor?"

Today was the race...

When I got my race packet, the first thing I noticed was that my number was 10. That was always my soccer number, so I was psyched. I ran a quick warm-up and stretched at the start line.

After the gun, I jumped out fast (6:11 first mile) and found a good rhythm for the second mile (13:05). In the last mile, my pastor friend Blaine caught up with me. My personal goal of this run was really to beat Blaine and Scott, both fellow United Methodist pastors and avid runners, and here was Blaine, ready to beat me. So I kept pace and sprinted him at the end.

My final time: 20:42. This was 25 seconds faster than I ran at the Lancaster Festival 5K last month. 25 seconds! I was second in my age group.

Once I finished, I turned right around and ran back to find Tara, Jonathan, and Andrew. This was Jonathan's first 5K run! They were bringing up the rear (the "sag wagon" from the fire department was no little distraction for the little guy) with Andrew in the stroller. Once I showed up, Jonathan was much more amenable to running. We mostly had short "races" - down hills, to the next cone, etc. He liked the water stops a lot, too. It was really cute to see him running his little heart out to the finish line!

When we finished, they were already starting the door prizes. We each got one, including a free admission to next year's Baltimore Festival 5K and a coupon for a free ice cream cone at Weldon's Ice Cream (one of our favorite places in Millersport). It was a good day in the Thiefdom!