Canby Dahlia Festival

Somehow I never really knew that dahlias existed until after my dad died. Near the 1 yr anniversary my mom went with me to a tea convention in Victoria, BC and on our trip to the Butchart Gardens I 'discovered them. They are so pretty!  Fabulous gigantic blooms! The following year I decided to try out the Canby Dahlia Festival.  I dressed MLH who was about 2 at the time in one of the dandy rompers my mother-in-law sent him.  It was a great photo op.  As we left the farm I saw signs for the Canby Basil Festival across the road.  We stopped so I could buy some basil for freezing pesto and I noticed they had a train.  Unfortunately it wasn't running during the week, but I planned to return again since it was so close to his birthday.
After verifying the train was running this weekend, we took the boys on Labor Day. We'd have to go early though because my mom had planned her own birthday party for him that afternoon. I had dressed MLH in a dandy romper the first time we went so I dressed the boys in rompers again.  I think this is the last time any of them will fit in these. First we took a few photos on the porch.  5 year olds are fickle when it comes to posing.

 

 

 

 It is a good thing we got there as close to 10 AM as we could because there were already a ton of people there. The weather was still pretty overcast, so I hoped it would eventually clear up as predicted.

 

 

 The boys enjoy being able to touch all the flowers and MLH wanted me to read all the names of the flowers to him.

 The dahlia fields.

 

 He is so sweet in this romper!

 

 Baby Boy  has a new favorite game of bouncing in your arms and laughing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My favorite ones are always purple!

 Playing a version of the game with Daddy.

 This is the only dahlia with a name I can remember, Checkers.  Very interesting; we both liked it.

 After we bought some cut flowers and caramel corn and went through a bounce house, we crossed the road to the Basil farm and bought tickets for the train. I was a little disappointed because on the website they have a shiny, black engine.  When we arrived there was a schlumpy little engine named Sparky. Cue sad trombone.
The boys didn't seem to mind at all though!

 This is his "I'm so excited to ride a train for my birthday!" face.

 The train ride is about 20 minutes, that includes two trips around the track and stopping once to pet the barnyard animals.  If we get pets again after my cat Mortimer goes to the giant litter box in the sky I'd like to do bunnies. They boys enjoyed the bunnies.

 

 

 They also enjoyed feeding the chickens.  I was interested in getting city chickens until Mr. W told me I would have to kill them when they stop producing eggs because he won't do it.  So I'm rethinking it for now.

 

 

 

 The boys with Sparky.

I should add that it wasn't the best planning to have the boys in these dandy rompers while out with farm animals, but I was pleasantly surprised by how clean they stayed. Well done, boys! Hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did!