A Fun, Fantastic, Fabulous, Full Weekend!

Let me just say that I watched exactly ZERO football over the weekend, which is unusual. But that's okay because I had plenty of other things that start with the letter F to fill up my time:

FALL FESTIVAL FUN-- It was the Valley Center Fall Festival, and we had absolutely perfect weather for it all weekend (except for Friday night when it rained). It was sunny and beautiful Saturday and Sunday. We immersed ourselves deeper into the Fest than we ever had, spending 12 hours Saturday and about 6 hours Sunday doing Festival related activities. We were worn out at the end of both days.

FIRST RUN --My 7 year old and I ran in the kids fun run together. It was his first race. He was so excited. Let me tell you that my son is fast. And I'm not just saying that because he's my son. He is a speedster. So right out of the shoot he zipped into the lead. He was blazing. We were in the lead for the first half of the race...then, he got gassed. "Daddy, can you carry me now?" We slowed down, walked a bit, then finished with a jog. We had a good heart to heart talk about pacing and going out too fast, which all racers struggle with. He probably finished 7th or 8th, there weren't any official race results. I was proud of him for finishing and he got himself his first race T Shirt and a nice medal.

FUN PARADE -- We walked together in the parade for my son's soccer team, and it was great parade weather. We had a huge bag of candy to give out but it only lasted for about the first half of the parade. I felt bad for the people watching towards the end of the parade, they always get the short end of the stick on candy.

FOUNTAINS -- Yes, it was nice enough this weekend for my kids to play in the fountains. I think the temperature was in the 80's.

FRISBEE -- On a whim, my buddy Isaac and I entered the Disc Golf tournament. We didn't realize that we'd be playing against semi-professional disc golfers. Seriously. These guys were serious. And they were good. They had little bags with 30 discs in them and carried little chairs to sit in between holes. My buddy and I only had 1 disc each, and we didn't throw them that well. We finished 3rd out of 5 teams, but we had a lot of fun in the process.

FINALS -- My son entered the youth basketball shooting contest and made the finals. The winner got a $50 gift card. He was one out of seven kids that made it to the finals. But....he didn't win. He got beat out by a sharp-shooting 6 year old girl. He did get a consolation prize of a glow-in-the-dark necklace and two tickets to the Moonbounce, so he thought that was fun.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS -- The best part of the weekend was spending time with my family. We had a lot of fun together. And, we had a picnic in the park with our good friends and got some good hang out time with them as well.

FISHING -- My boys entered the fishing derby that took place at a little pond in the park. They supplied all the bait and fishing rods, and stocked the pond. My youngest caught 5 fish, including 4 nice sized catfish (his longest was 16 inches). My oldest caught 4 fish and his best was 14 inches. Neither of them won for biggest or smallest fish, but my youngest did win a fishing pole for catching the most inches worth of fish in his age group. I think he caught close to 70 inches of fish. He was excited to win the new rod and reel, and both my boys got ribbons for doing a great job.

FREE FOOD -- Well, free with a festival button. Our small town grocery store catered in a nice pulled pork dinner at the park Sunday night. It was not a bad little meal. There was also a free magic show, clowns, face painting, and concert.

FIREWORKS -- This was the first year that this small town had a fireworks show to close out the festival, and surprisingly, it was a pretty good show. It was a perfect way to end a great weekend of fun together, enjoying the evening with a fireworks show.

These pictures don't even begin to show what a great time we had this weekend. We were too busy having fun to take pics. Hope everyone else had a fun weekend too!