Pilgrim Place 2012

Yesterday we pilgrims (and turkeys) packed our bags, picked up our grandma, and journeyed the long 605 freeway.  After many minutes of traveling we arrived safely in Claremont. That's right! It's time for the Pilgrim Place Festival.

Last year the three older kids were all Indians. This year we were going to do all Pilgrims, but I just ran out of time and gumption. I was able to do the two girl costumes. I convinced Nathan to be an Indian again and Simon was sure to fit into an Indian hand-me-down as well. The week before the festival Nathan tried on the Indian costume he wore last year. Too tight. Hand-me-downs for Simon? Nope. They all looked like dresses or were indeed dresses. So Nathan got a new turkey shirt and Simon wore, um, what he wore last year. :)

The cost of children activities are crazy low. We never spend the ridiculous amount of money on face painting, but for a dollar a face I could get their entire bodies painted! I wasn't sure if Simon would get his face painted, but we tried. He seemed very interested in the smooth cold feeling of a wet paintbrush on his face. He sat nicely for the entire art session. You should have seen him when he saw what was on his face! It was the cutest thing. He seemed very happy with himself. He stood in front of the mirror and swayed and smiled.

Many people commented on how cute the girls were. Well, once Alynna morphed into Pilgrim Tiger  anyone who commented on her costume was promptly growled at.

The idea of paper fish grilling was hilarious to Simon.

One of the kids favorite activities was the glue-in. If I had brought a novel and left the active baby at home I could have sat there for an hour and they would still have been gluing.

See what I mean about the active baby?

Here we're sitting on the Massasoit Super Chief Train. What Massasoit and locomotives have to do with each other I'm not sure, but we don't ask questions when they're trains and active babies involved. And there's my beautiful mother-in-law. 

Simon loves babies whether they are real or plastic.

A pilgrim tigress sucking on a snow cone. What a cute little pilgrim you are, they had said. Her polite answer? GRRRR! ROAR! and she bared her claws at them.

Where else in the entire world can you be served cotton candy by a Pilgrim? Nathan had a pink fluff ball bigger than his entire head.

This is what happens to little boys who eat lunch after getting their face painted. I should have had a much later picture. That black circle became more of a black circle-oval-smear thing. It was pathetically cute.

And THIS is what happens to little boys who put their entire face into cotton candy to take a bite. They grow a pink goatee.
Kaeley has already planned on not dressing up next year. Hmph. I'm not sure what I think about that. We have done Indians and Pilgrims and next year what's left? Maybe full on turkeys with huge feathers? Why she wouldn't want that is just besides me. :) Brad says next year we should dress two up as cornstalks and two as dead fish. I've learned the hard way they know how to make things smell like dead fish, so maybe he's got something there. I don't know, maybe we'll dress them up as the Easter Bunny.