Harvest Walk and Afternoon Fun

It's not often we get to the downtown area.  But, on Saturday, the museum had their first annual Harvest Walk, full of fun things for kids and overall, a great afternoon for families.  Ramsey and I decided to take the trek into town for the event.

Prior to the Harvest Walk, we stopped in at the Farmer's Market on Main (bought a few zucchini!) and took Ramsey's picture in front of the new mural at Malchow Plaza, painted by local artists.  

If you look closely, you'll see that the mural (old mason jars with colored marbles, recessed into a shelf) was painted on a large piece of wood, then adhered to the brick wall.  The brick is on the mural and blends in nearly seamlessly into the wall.   And, the marbles are each painted beautifully, with small scenes of our town's history; the train station, Storybookland, the old Capitol Theatre, etc).

Then, we went to the Harvest Stroll at the museum, where they had blocked off the streets for the event.

They had all kinds of fun and old-fashioned themed games for everyone.  Ramsey started out at the "Flick the Seed" game.

Then, to the bag toss game.

They had an antique rope maker there too, so he made his own rope out of twine. 

Then, the duck pond.

And the "Pioneer Games", with tops and old-fashioned wooden toys from generations gone by.

Ramsey stayed at this station for quite a while, playing with all of the toys.  

One of the volunteers said it was "fun for hours" for children 100 years ago.  I joked back that they'd play for hours because some of the toys were impossible to master!  Like this one, where you try to get the wooden ball into the small wooden bowl.  Every time my ball went into the bowl, it would immediately pop back out again!  Hours of frustration!  Er... "fun"!

We bought some raffle tickets (hey, maybe we'll win the goody basket!).  Then, headed off to the pumpkin decorating booths.   There were gold-leafing booths, booths to paint pumpkins, ones to add on funny construction paper faces.  But, Ramsey wanted to use Sharpies to draw a design onto his.

He was quite intent for a good amount of time, drawing squiggly "pumpkin vines" on his tiny orange and green squash.

Then, he added his name to a little tag and tied it onto the stem of the pumpkin.

In the background, they had musicians playing fiddles, a base, guitars, banjos, and ukuleles.

We needed refreshments after that, so we walked to a little coffee shop down the block and had a snack.

Because the day was nowhere near over, we decided to stop at Wylie Park to climb on some of the playsets.

We moved to a different playset after a while.   Ramsey met a lot of new kids at this playset and had a ton of fun!  He called it "The Ninja Tower".

Now, I need to tell you a little story here.  Driving, on the way to the park, I saw Ramsey in the back seat praying. I asked him what he was praying for.  He said he prayed that Raelyn and Ashton would be at the park to play with.  (These are two little girls who are some of his best friends and live down the road from us.)  After we arrived and Ramsey was playing, I saw a new group of people come to the area.  Then, I heard the names "Ashton" and "Raelyn" being called, so I looked around, wondering what was up.    

Well... God answered Ramsey's prayers for Ashton and Raelyn to be there.  But... these were two different siblings altogether, who were there with their grandparents playing.  Coincidence?   Or... a fun little nod from The Almighty?  Hmm... makes ya wonder!  ;-)