It's the Great Pumpkin

57th Annual!

Besides visiting the grandparents, there were two other reasons for the timing of this trip back to Illinois... my hometown's annual Pumpkin Festival and my high school class reunion. 

If you've ever used Libby's Pumpkin for any recipes, chances are pretty high that it was grown and harvested from fields in Central Illinois and canned at the Nestlé plant in Morton. The "Pumpkin Capital of the World" has held an annual 4-day celebration of everything pumpkin each September since 1967. Imagine a stereotypical small town fair (carnival rides, competitions, entertainment, food, parade, etc.) but on steroids - the Chamber of Commerce and its army of volunteers does an excellent job! However, the bigger draw for me is the chance to catch up with old friends since many people come back to see friends/family who are still in town.

As a bonus for my parents, my brother G and niece C also decided to visit when they heard we would be there (my sister-in-law couldn't come due to work 😢), so they had all of their grandkids together for the first time since before the pandemic.  

Recently M and J have both been more interested in learning to play golf, so yesterday afternoon they went with GongGong to the driving range at Lick Creek, along with R, G, and C. 

After another one of my mom's delicious meals for dinner, we walked downtown to check out the P-Fest. It didn't take too long for me to bump into several people that I knew. While I was chatting with one of my classmates, everyone else got in the long line for the Pumpkin Sweet Shop (pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin pie).

Donut *and* ice cream

Then we walked over to the library to see the Pumpkin Weigh-off winners...

1093 pounds!

This morning, R, M, and I walked back downtown to watch R's college roomie MS finish running the Pumpkin Classic 10k and visit over pumpkin pancakes with him and his wife MFS. (Too many M initials in that sentence!) 

So fun to catch up with college friends!

We walked back to my parents' house along the parade route, so we saw the entries from the very beginning as they were coming towards us. I've always been amused that people set their chairs out way ahead of time (we're talking days!) to save their spots. I guess you need to make sure that you are in a prime spot to get candy thrown at you...

In the late afternoon, my parents' neighbors came over to help take family pics so that we could all be in the photo together.

The grands

Here's a throwback pic from 10 years ago...

March 2013

Then R and I spent the evening with a handful of my high school classmates at our informal reunion. I really enjoyed seeing everyone! Thanks to the organizers for putting this together - hopefully we can get the word out to more people for the next one!