Festivus

I am continually amazed at how many different festivals there are in Ithaca.  We have been here two years and I’m still hearing of new ones.  There were TWO competing festivals today: The Scottish Games and Celtic Festival and the Dragon Boat Festival.  The Ithaca Scottish Games and Celtic Festival was definitely one we’ll return to next year.  We hurried down to Stewart Park as soon as Norah was done with her morning nap.  I was worried we had missed the bagpipes but Bryan in his wisdom assured me that there would likely be continuous bagpiping.  He was of course right.  They were actually having competitions between different bands from the Central New York region.  There were bands from Buffalo, Syracuse, Rome and a more local Fingerlakes band.  I’m impressed that many people play bagpipes.  In addition to the fabulous bands, we enjoyed watching the athletic competitions, looking at sheep and over hearing a mom sternly say “We came to listen to your father play the bagpipes, NOT to play on the playground!”  Lots of children were wearing kilts and I asked one little boy if I could take his picture with Norah but he was embarrassed and ran away. 

This was Norah’s favorite part.    These ladies, along with the sheep, were demonstrating how wool becomes yarn and eventually a kilt.  Norah just wanted to see the sheep.  Bryan snapped this little treasure \Even the Carousel was getting into the spirit of the Festival by abandoning the usual organ music and playing Celtic tunes.  We stopped by the Dragon Boat Festival afterwards just to check it out.  It was pretty neat but I’m glad we prioritized the Celtic Festival.   We also caught the end of Victor and Kurt’s soccer game after the Dragon Boat festival.  It was just the Saturday afternoon that kept on giving. Norah was wiped out from all the festivals and took a nice long nap.  Then we had Christy and Jace over for Dinner.      It was good we did or I might not have gotten invited to go to NYC tomorrow with Christy.  That’s right,  Norah and I are headed to the Manhattan right after church tomorrow.