Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival 2008

Last year BVZ and I went to the Half Moon Bay Festival for the first time and had a fabulous experience. We went late on Sunday afternoon, and even though the traffic sucked, the festival itself wasn't terribly crowded and we wandered around stuffing ourselves with meat on a stick, multiple kinds of pie, and pumpkin beer. Norah was actually there too, we just didn't know it at the time (hmmm, maybe all the pumpkin beer is why she hasn't rolled over yet... kidding!) Anyway, we looked forward for months to introducing her to the festival. We decided to go on Saturday morning because that's when it's at its most exciting. Here is Norah in the car before she realized she would be in that damn seat for over an hour.


Being pissed about the car seat sure tires a baby out, and by the time we parked and got out of the car, she was down for the count.

Not to be deterred by her apparent lack of interest, we set out in search of pumpkin flavored food, and of course, the aforementioned beer.

It was so freaking crowded. Wall to wall people. You couldn't walk without being shoulder to shoulder with someone else and I can't tell you the number of heels I nailed with the stroller. It. Was. Misearble. I was pretty much a huge baby about the whole thing, as I thought at any moment my head could possibly explode. BVZ parked the baby in the shade and made me stand in line for beer. My beer experience is indicative of how I felt about the first half of this adventure: they were selling 3 kinds of beer, pumpkin ale, 'Obama' ale, and 'McCain' ale (I think the latter two were actually the same but they were doing a silly contest to see which candidate would 'win' the election). I ordered a pumpkin and obama ale and when the lady handed them to me I said, 'which one is which?' She replied, 'one is dark and one is light.' I said, 'I can see that. Which is which?' To which she replied, 'Just look at them! You can clearly see one is dark and one is light.' I was really tempted to punch her in the face, but instead I said, 'I CAN SEE THAT. IS THE PUMPKIN ALE THE DARK OR THE LIGHT ONE?' She said, 'Oh. Sorry. I am not sure. Let me ask someone.'
ARGH.
The crowds didn't get better, but BVZ told me to lighten up and bought me some pie. My disposition improved and we found a few places to walk around that didn't make me feel like killing myself or someone else. Our favorite treat was the mac and cheese sprinkled with pumpkin seeds and pumpkin spice. Mmmmmm.

There was an annoying parade with lots of fire trucks.

Norah slept until we roused her so we could get a family picture taken with a 1,500 lb. pumpkin (it's awesome, if I ever figure out how to work our scanner I will post it). Once she was up she wanted to be up high (ie, carried by BVZ) so she could check everything out. We were stopped by about 300 little old ladies who couldn't get over how cute she was. BVZ said he always knew she was a chick magnet.


It ended up being a great day, but I think from now on we will stick to going on Sunday afternoon.