Ice Cream Festival

Every year on Memorial Day weekend, we try to take the kids to the Velvet Ice Cream Utica Sertoma Ice Cream Festival. We typically go on Sunday afternoon, as they have a car show going on and it is just what works best for our family schedule. There is only one road that leads to the festival and in years past we have sat in traffic for over an hour waiting to just get into the parking area. It is absolute craziness, but we feel it is worth it. 

Well this year, I was looking at the schedule of events and noticed that the Columbus Zoo was going to have an animal show there at 11am on Sunday. It was the only time they were going to do a presentation...unlike the magic act that was going to be there at least 3 times each day. That got me to thinking....what if we went early? What if we left our house around 9:30am or so to get there? I talked to Bill and he agreed that we should do that.

THAT WAS THE BEST DECISION WE COULD HAVE MADE!  

There was no traffic getting there. We pulled into the parking area and there was 1 car in front of us paying to park (it is $5 to park, but no admission to the actual festival). We were in the 3rd row of cars near that street instead of parking in the very back of the fields. 

We were able to go look at cars and the ducks at the duck pond before the zoo show. Benjamin loved the ducks. Jacob and Rebecca liked looking at all the cars and Rebecca's favorites were any that had flames painted on them. 

Then we headed back across the street and got some ice cream--the kids has cookie dough ice cream, Bill had buckeye ice cream and I had their new elephant ear ice cream-- and sat down to watch the zoo show. The zoo brought a penguin, a legless lizard (that looked like a snake), a baby kangaroo, a screech owl, an armadillo and a cat that was like a lynx. It was really cool.  After the show, they allowed people to come up and pet the armadillo if they wanted. Rebecca wanted to and she said it felt like a fingernail; the "shell" of an armadillo is made up of the same material that make up our fingernails. 

After the zoo show we walked around to all the different vendors. Rebecca rode a horse; Jacob did not want to and Benjamin is still too young in my opinion. 

We then took a drink and snack break where Bill got me a funnel cake (which Benjamin ended up eating most of) and I got the kids some cotton candy. 

Around 12:30 we decided to head to my parents house, as they live less than 5 minutes from the festival. We spent the afternoon outside at their house and then we all went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner to do an early celebration of Bill's birthday. 

Overall, it was a very nice day (except for the sunburn that I got) and I think we have decided that the earlier we go to the festival the better all around.