Daffodil Festival

There wasn’t a Saturday Surfing post yesterday because the day was packed full of wonderful Nantucket festivities.  The whole town was decked out in yellow and green, and jam-packed full of visitors celebrating spring.  Of course, I love any opportunity to dress up Nora,so to the children’s parade we went, where there were lots of opportunities to ooh and ahh at cute little people dripping flowers.If there had been a wagon decorating contest, my friend Jess would have won hands down.

After two laps around the children’s parade, Nora was bribed with a cookie to be in the hat contest.  There was some pretty fierce competition, but she had a great time and was pretty pleased with her ribbon.
I did recycle Nora’s hat (and whole outfit) from last year, which I hadn’t intended to do since, to be honest, it’s a little bit ghetto sewing, slapped together the night before.  But somehow I didn’t plan enough in advance again, and so we went with it.  Next year maybe I’ll get on hat making a little sooner.  I’d love to make one for myself, but with some of the creations on display in the adult category, I’m not sure I’d stand a chance.

After the parade and hat contests, we stopped by The Brotherhood for a quick visit with Dada and to update him on the festival.  One of the sad things about his job is that he’ll probably never get to see Daffodil, 4th of July, or Stroll for himself.  It’s a bummer, but we do our best to keep him filled in before running out again to take in more of the festivities. I think my favorite thing about Daffy is the antique car parade.  It’s pure fantasy, walking up and down Main Street thinking, someday…I want one, so so much. I think I was most definitely born in the wrong time period.

By the way, not only did Jess have the best wagon in the children’s parade, but she also had a pretty darn cool car in the parade, hand-painted by the talented Jeanne van Etten of Nantucket Mermaid and the eighth graders at the lighthouse school.

Last year, Nora was more into smelling flowers and petting dogs than anything else, but this year she was super excited to sit and watch the parade. For at least 30 minutes, she sat on her tricycle waving to the cars as they went past and saying, “Bye-bye, parade.  Bye-bye, cars,” over and over.  I’m a sucker for crazy community events anyway, but being able to experience them through a child’s eyes is just fantastic.  I’m already looking forward to the next Nantucket festival and I’m so grateful to live in such a wonderful place.