This is the weekend of the Troy Strawberry Festival. I invited mom to come along with me this year and she agreed. And then dad invited himself along, because he was looking forward to riding the school bus to the festival. (Yes, he’s a little odd…) So I drove us to Meijer this morning and we took one of the free shuttles (driven by the dedicated bus drivers of Troy City Schools) to Hobart Arena. The festival is held on the levy near Hobart arena, so it’s a very long festival, but very narrow. A few years ago they began to have some spillover down near the Troy HS football stadium, so we started there first. My first stop? Strawberry donuts! Only 15 minutes in line, then I looked for the parental units. It turns out they were in Tammy’s glass pendants booth. Tammy’s a coworker of mine who’s taken to making neat glass pendants and artwork. She’ll be doing quite a few festivals this summer, selling her wares. Mom got a neat necklace there. She also shared some strawberry-lemon shakeup – very yummy.

Mom & I each had a donut and dad had a bite from each. Then we found ourselves in the booth selling bamboo plants. The fellow selling them claimed they were very difficult to kill. I think mother took that as a challenge and decided to get one. And I got a very small one with a cute panda base (for $4). The booth owner let us keep the plants there while we shopped around some more.

We made our way onto the levy and wandered down one way, checking out the wares and the food stalls. We finally decided upon barbecue chicken dinners. We sat on the side of the levy and watched some firemen playing “Waterball.” They had two teams manning fire hoses (pumping water from the river) trying to send a ball to the other side. Think of a “push of war” versus a “tug of war.” After lunch, we continued shopping. I decided upon some strawberry ice cream, which was very refreshing. (It was a hot & sunny day.) But I hadn’t even half-finished my ice cream when I saw a booth selling “deep fried strawberries.” Hmmm, I’d never had those before. So I ordered some. Turns out they’re strawberries filled with a creamy & sweet goo which are then covered in donut batter and deep fried. And then they pour a sweet sauce on top. Da-amn, they were good! And not so sweet that they killed, (not like the strawberry dough ball I’d had the year before.)

Once we’d seen all of the booths on the levy, we headed back to pick up our plants. Then I headed off to get us another strawberry-lemon shakeup. Just as tasty as the first. We shared it until we were finally seated on the bus. There was a lady from Hilliard between me and the parental units, so I didn’t pass the shakeup to them until we were back at Meijer. A short hop to the pet store for food & litter for the kitties (we’d run out of food earlier yesterday, so this morning I’d grilled them a chicken boobie for breakfast. Heh.)

We returned home and the folks headed off to the Lake for the weekend (and much of next week). Then I played CoH for a bit before taking a nap. School’s officially out for us, so I have Monday off – woot! Tuesday will be training for our new grading program, but beyond that, I’ve no idea what my summer schedule will be like.