Tipton Co. Pork Festival!

It's that time of year again...time for the 40th Annual Tipton Co. Pork Festival! It my sound lame to you, but 'round these parts it is a BIG deal! The Festival takes over downtown Tipton with tents, rides and of course festival food! Yummy! The festivities started Thursday evening with the kick-off parade. The grande parade is Saturday afternoon. It's bigger and better than the Thursday parade but I knew we wouldn't be able to make it on Saturday because we are going to the circus! Anyway...back to the Pork Festival...Unfortunately, we weren't having the best weather!

Here is Libby waiting for the parade to start. It wasn't raining when we left the house, so I didn't bring an umbrella or raincoat or even a jacket for my poor baby. Luckily, I had this umbrella in the truck. And Libby was a little chilly, but very excited so she wanted to stay and wait for the parade instead of going home! What a trooper!

Finally, the parade begins! Of course it didn't start until 5:30, and I thought it started at 5:00, so we sat out in the rain waiting a little longer than we needed too!

Here is the Pork Festival mascot, I guess you could say...Pork Boy!

I let you in on a little secret...The main reason Libby was sooo excited about the parade is because they throw candy out to the kids! We came prepared! Notice Libby's nice little bag compared to the boy next to her who only has his hands! Libby doesn't mess around when it comes to candy!

Other kids are content with a few pieces of candy...But Libby doesn't stop until each piece is picked up! Although when we got home, she went through her bag and picked out all the peppermint candies and threw them in the trash because she doesn't like those! She just wanted to get them out of the way from the start!

This odd looking fellow is "Jim Dandy." He is the mascot from the locally owned "Jim Dandy Restaurant."

What would a parade be without tractors (in Tipton anyway)!?

Everyone knows this guy....It's Ronald McDonald!

Libby had said early in the night that she had never been to the parade before and I reminded her that we went last year. Then all of the sudden she remembered that we also came to the pork festival last year with Katie and they have ice cream!! So we had to get ice cream again this year. She picked out a chocolate covered banana and was very excited about it! Mike made the mistake of calling it a chocolate banana and Libby shoots back, "No! Covered!" It was pretty funny!

This concludes our evening at the pork festival! We weren't there long enough to get an elephant ear, so we may have to go back today after Libby gets out of school!