2011 Deagon Festival

Since I had the time and wanted to go, we picked up the three oldest Barnhart kids and we headed to Lake Phalen. We parked across the street from the park at Gustavus Adolphus Church and took a school bus to the festivities.

The dragon boats were out practicing.

The girls were posing.

We got real close to them. In order to win the race, you need to grab a flag at the finish line by laying down on the dragon's head.

That looks like fun.

The dragon dance team.

They spent some money for this festival because they flew in five monks from Thailand to bless the festival.Lunch time. Out Lunchables were delicious. Everybody got to pick out their own before driving to St Paul.

Kid crafts were enjoyed by all. Gigi made a bracelet by stringing beads.

So did Lorelei.

Joseph didn't want to do beads so he opted to learn some origami.

They also spent a lot of money flying in entertainment from Korea. This is the Polynesian stick dance.

One of the statues there.Guys dancing to win the heart of a woman. Did it work?

This was a Korean farmer dance. It was their job to entertain all the farmers in the rice patties.

These two traditional Korean singers are national icons.

As well as this dancer. These guys were flown in from Korea too.

Time to play.

Look ma! No hands.

This was one of the finishes of the races.

At the beginning of the Dragon Festival there was the Dragon Dance that weaved it's way through the park.

This the Monk's prayer (chant) to bless to bless the lake and the races.

This was part of the farmer dance. Notice the head gear. I think I want a hat like that.

This was the grand finale of the farmer dance.

Lorelei tried her hand (or feet) on the balance beam.

Traveling to Big Lake 2011

It's the Fourth of July and it was time to leave Ralph and Char's lake home.Very patriotic shorts, Ralph.

Part of the crew leaving town. WE were on our way to Big Lake to join the others at Kathy's cabin. We even made it there before the blessing was said on the food.

I didn't take many pictures this year. Emily and JoJo had just moved back home a few hours before.

Rugby Trip - Judy's all school reunion.

There was an All School Reunion for Rugby High School, meaning that everyone whoever went there was invited.All the hotel/Inn rooms were booked months in advance to lots of people were staying up to 60 miles away. Judy's cousin Katie Peterson had a farm house she let us stay in with all the other Thompson brothers and their wives (except for Jerry's wife Kris, who was not there, so Luann Huffert was the substitute). These couple of pictures are from the front door.

Notice the cows by the lake? Moooooooo.

As partial payment for the use of the farmhouse (10 miles outside of town on dirt roads and a GPS would not help you) we volunteered to man the food booth selling pickle dogs, brats and prime rib sandwiches.

There was an antique car show and this 1936 Chevy is the car I wanted to buy, but $40K was a bit steep. I talked to the guy who builds these and he says that it is not cheep to do. They drive this car to and from work. And it has a few stone chips on the front. Cool, huh?

In 1951 and if you wanted to drag race, this was the car for you. A Hudson Hornet, with Twin H Power, but it needed to be a straight six instead of a V8. Remember Cars?

A Chevy 350 engine.

Automatic with the stick on the floor. If I had the money I would have bought it.

There was mutten bustin

and Mud racing. I wanted to watch some of these races but then I found out it costs $8 to get in and I only wanted to stay for maybe 30 minutes. So this is what I did. I walked across the dirt race track and into the pit area (no fences) with two cameras and got within 50 feet of the cars. Maybe they thought I was from the newspaper or something.

So first up was just stock trucks. If you had a beater and you wanted it to get dirty, you raced it. Then the modified stocks and the super modified (I didn't see any of those). Just the night before this was the same area that the Johnny Holm Band played and everyone was dancing, including Mike's crazy friend.

Even Suburbans ran.

This old beater with skinny tires was one of the fastest of the stock trucks. This was not limited to just guys; there were several girls that ran too.

Away he goes.

Even antiques ran.

The class of 1966.

And again.

Sunday was the big parade. If you lived in town, you could have been in it. There were tractors (lots of them), strollers and even riding lawn mowers. There were several firetrucks from the surrounding areas (left unprotected). We sat in front of the Haaland Home. Gramma G joined us in the shade.

Then we drove to Ralph's lake home on Turtle lake and spent the night. We took a trip in the fishing boat. This is the house.

That night we were blessed with over two hours of high aerial fireworks, all of which were illegal. These were just as good if not better than most community fireworks displays. The night before the guy in the mansion across the lake, shot all his off from a barge with a DJ blasting music.

I think Brett has an old truck that he could enter in this Mud race. Doesn't need to be anything fancy.

Some of the aerial fireworks that went on for over two hours.

2011 Earle Brown Days Parade

This parade has always gone our street in front of our house, except for last year, which we did not attend, and this year. It was moved again this year because the Dupont repaving project that was supposed to be completed by last Halloween, was not completed until a couple weeks ago, after the parade. So Barnharts, Judy and I found a good spot and found a lot of other friends there also.

The Lion Dance went on as scheduled. They are always in the parade, since we have a very high Asian population here.

Music for the lion dance.

Lorelei wanted to hug all the big air-costume people.

Lorelei, Gigi and their friends were drawing attention to themselves for everyone throwing candy to see. I guess it worked because they got tons.