Sugar Creek Arts Festival

This weekend was the 25th annual Sugar Creek Arts Festival. I love living right next to uptown Normal and campus!!! Today we brought the kids and Argos to the festival, and a great time was had by everyone. It was a great arts festival!! No twee license plate birdhouses and scented candles. There was an astonishing diversity of arts and crafts, with festival food and live entertainment.

Universe of Russian stacking dolls

Rust bugs

Rust dogs

Joseph makes jewelry and a visor.


Wise-ass balloon man! (Is there any other kind?)



Joseph explains why he chose pineapple ice.

Argos was pet by so many people that he was palpably greasy by the time he got home. It was rather hot and humid, so we tried to keep Argos in the shade as much as possible, and he spent a lot of time lying in different booths.


Here's the Pantagraph story

Earth Day lunchbag

Sam brings his lunch to school. The school lunch program is not awful, but I would rather give him less processed food with fresh fruit, etc. I think that he is one of the few kids who brings a lunch. It is unclear whether brown bagging it is a cool or geeky thing to do: I have heard kids ask him why he brings his lunch, but also heard of kids drooling over his fresh strawberries and baked chicken drumsticks.
Last week was Earth Day, and his teacher mentioned to him that throwing away his lunchbag every day was bad for the environment, so he asked if he could have a lunchbox. Sam has mentioned numerous times that he hates to have to carry anything extra to school, so it would have to be a soft-sided lunchbox that could fit in his backpack. As it happens all of our lunchboxes have been RECALLED due to LEAD contamination (Thanks California Healthy Choices program!) So I made him one out of a pair of Danny's old jeans. Recycle that!

Healthy Choices, my ass!

Hemingway

Sam chose to do his class project on Ernest Hemingway, who apparently has ties to Illinois. He worked really hard on this puppet of Papa Hemingway. I helped him with the hat, and Danny and I gave him suggestions about the structure, but he did everything else. Hemingway is carrying The Old Man and the Sea.

I didn't know about this assignment in advance, but luckily, I have a vast stockpile of craft supplies. When the Rubidoux JoAnn Fabrics across the street closed down and everything was 70% off, I went nuts and bought a little of anything that I could imagine using. I'm glad that we didn't get rid of all that crap when we moved.