Catfish Statues, Music, Snow Cones and Pork Rinds

I know this all sounds like a STRANGE combination, but I can explain...

We took a trip to spend the weekend with Austin's tournament baseball team because we did a cookie dough fundraiser so I had to go pick up the goods. Since it's a three hour trip for us we just decided to squeeze as much as we could into the weekend. We planned to do another fundraiser at the Catfish Festival that was being held in a nearby town. It was decided to sell Snow Cones and Pork Rinds!!

WELCOME TO THE SOUTH!!!!!!

The heat of the day brought in crowds of people wanting a snow cone to cool off. The pork rinds didn't go as well as we had hoped, but that is mainly because we had competition from other booths that were selling them as well.

It was overall a great turnout and we raised another $1,000 to go towards our trip to the World Series this year in Branson, MO.

It was hard work, but well worth it!

The actual festival was interesting. The turnout was better than I had imagined considering the size of the town. It is a very "old", small town, but with a lot of character. On every street corner you would see catfish statues painted with different themes. The entertainment was blues bands and they sounded great. The vendors also had some interesting and weird things for sale.

Here are some pictures from the festival.


OK this one is weird even for me. I couldn't resist taking a picture of this to share!
Potted Possum?????? <<>>

I loved all of the different colors in this picture!

Austin and some of his team mates watching a street juggler.

All of the kids had a blast. One of the vendors sold a "Marshmallow Shooter" that was made out of PVC pipe, so of course all of the boys had to have one. They would sit and find innocent passer-byers and peg them with marshmallows. Then they would have a war amongst themselves. I'm surprised that they didn't get in serious trouble with these things. That just goes to show how nice us southerners can really be!!!!!

I had a great time as well! Even though we worked our tails off Saturday, it was absolutely a breath of fresh air. I got to actually enjoy their company on Sunday while the boys had practice. I love the group of people that we have blessed to travel with. Austin has been playing tournament ball for about 4 years now and he has been on a couple of teams during that time. On those in the past I got close to a couple of parents (and we are still fairly close), but this is much different. With this team all of the families get along with each other and they really treat everyone equally. They are much more than just a traveling baseball team, they are a family and I am so lucky that they have included us to be a part of it. They are amazing.