Heritage Days

This last weekend was my hometown's annual fair, Heritage Days.  We headed down on Saturday to check it out.  Every year I think Heritage Days gets more disappointing. Probably a combination of that fact that I'm not a little kid anymore so it's not quite as impressive and also it just gets more and more pathetic every year.  It just seems like it gets less fun, family-oriented, and kid-friendly and more just about giving people an opportunity to get drunk. But still, we went.

We got there just in time for the parade so we headed over to watch that and got to visit with Gretchen. It rained a little that afternoon so we just hung out at my parents' empty house and let Tatum take a nap. But we had to make it uptown for the Lumberjack Show.  This was new this year and I was curious.  It was actually pretty entertaining.  It was three guys, one was the announcer and the other two would compete to see who could do different lumberjack-ish things the fastest.  It was clearly rigged but still entertaining. The chainsaws they used were pretty loud but Tatum didn't seem to be bothered by it so that was good.

At some point during the show, the announcer lumberjack gave himself 2 minutes to make a carving out of a log using only a chainsaw.  He told the crowd at the beginning that he was going to do that at some point and then he would give it away to someone.  As soon as Rich heard that he knew he needed to be as loud as possible during the whole show so he would be noticed.  And that he was. :) The lumberjack ended up making a little chair, that looks like a head with a face and hair when it is upside down. Then he chose 4 people to come up and compete for the chair, and of course he picked Rich.  First Rich had to act like Paul Bunyan and yell "Timber!".  He managed to beat his first competitor out with his yell, complete with beating his chest even.  Then it was time for a dance off between him and Beth Young, a girl I went to high school with.  I won't even try to tell you about it, I'll let the video speak for itself.

Surprisingly enough, those sweet moves won him the chair. :) They also caused the embarrassment of his wife and three kids haha.  Rich's ability to not care what people think and to not get embarrassed is commendable, I wish I was a little more like that.

Here's Tatum on the prized chair. We couldn't get her to look up to save our lives. It was like she was trying to figure out what she was on.

After the show they did a lumberjack sports camp and Caden was able to try running on a log in the water. Kelbie was able to meet the lumberjacks and get her picture taken with them. She may have decided she wants to marry a lumberjack one day, I'm not sure. ;)

After the lumberjack show we were able to hit up the Bingo tent which is always a Heritage Days favorite. We met Gretchen and Andy there and Gretchen was kind enough to share some of her luck and we actually won for once! So did Gretchen, of course.  I don't think I have ever played Bingo with her when she hasn't won. :) Tatum was quite popular in the Bingo tent. My old superintendent (who I'm sure didn't remember me) even held her while he walked around monitoring the game.  She patted her hands on his bald head and pulled his glasses off his face.  No big deal.

We got some yummy gyros for dinner and then headed over to Gretchen's house to hang out for awhile and Tatum was able to show them just how crazy and hyper she can be.  Despite Heritage Days not being quite as cool as I remember, it was still a fun day!