River Vale's Octoberfest

It's Thursday and I'm just getting to this post about what we did on Sunday ... it's been a busy week! I've been trying to get the house ready for visitors, since my parents will be arriving tomorrow night. They'll be staying for a whole week and we'll be leaving for a few days to New England to enjoy the fall foliage. I'm sure I'll have tons of pictures and stories to share ...

Last Sunday (October 5th) was River Vale's annual Octoberfest/Fall Festival. First Friends has a bake sale booth, so I had to make cupcakes for that. We went last year and had a great time, so I wanted to go this year too. The weather was dreary on Sunday morning, so John said he wasn't interested in going. The clouds cleared and the rain stopped, so Nicole and I decided to take Reagan and Mia for a quick hour before it ended.

While walking down the path, they actually posed for this picture! As you can tell, they were wearing matching rain boots ... Mia wears a size 9 and Reagan is only a size 6, so Nicole gave us Mia's size 7 rain boots from last year!

Right when we got there, we walked over to a big crowd of people who were watching a hula-hoop contest. When I looked at the participants, I noticed our next door neighbor, Hattie Trimm! As you can see by the expression on her face, she was very nervous. The judge was having them do all sorts of difficult moves, like jumping up and down, lifting their legs up, etc., all while keeping two hula-hoops around their waists!

I don't know why she was so nervous ~ she was a pro! She took first place and won this prize. Congratulations, Hattie! After we walked away, I guess her older sister Emily took first place in her age group as well. The funny part is the story their mom Lizzie told me 2 days later: They went to Octoberfest last year, just 1 short month after moving here from the UK. They were mesmerized by the hula-hoop contest, since they had never tried it before. So, they bought hula-hoops, practiced, and won the contest this year! Pretty impressive, if you ask me :)
Reagan and Mia wanted to go down the big blow-up slide, so we waiting in line forever. When it was finally our turn, she insisted I go on it with her. We had to take off our shoes and when we tried to climb up the "ladder", it was an absolute joke. It's too bad Nicole wasn't videoing this, because I could have sent it to America's Funniest Home Videos and won some money! It was so slippery and steep, that Reagan couldn't pull herself up ... so I tried to climb it, while carrying Reagan. I just kept losing my footing and sliding back down. I must have looked so pathetic! Finally, the guy working the thing told me I'd probably have an easier time if I took my socks off. Duh. Why didn't I think of that? And more importantly, why didn't he tell me that after the first time I fell, instead of letting me make a fool of myself trying over and over? Oh well. At least I got Reagan to the top and we had 2 seconds of fun sliding down to make up for the difficult climb :)

I ended up running into so many people I knew, which was a little surprising and a little bit gratifying. I've lived in River Vale for 4 years now and I'm happy that I've met so many nice people. Luckily, we saw Ms. Lisa (Reagan's preschool teacher), we saw Meredith's brother Jim, we saw lots of moms and kids from First Friends, and then I saw several students and parents with whom I worked at Woodside Elementary. It was crazy to see some of the kids that I worked with when they were kindergartners ~ they're now in 4th grade and so grown up! It made me miss working in the school.