Tomato Days 2014

Good ol' Hooper.  Our town celebration is called "Tomato Days" and it is held during Labor Day weekend each year.  It's actually a lot of fun.  They have rodeos and beautiful baby contests (Miss Pink Tomato.  Ha!)  They also have bed races, where people decorate twin size beds, put someone on them, and race them down the street.  Ha again!  There is even a cow plop contest where you pay money to choose a one-square-foot area of the rodeo grounds and they let a cow out to walk around and the first place it poops is the winning spot.  The winner wins something like $500!  I'm not kidding!  They also have a really good town dinner on Saturday night with pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, cookies (and of course, fresh garden tomatoes!) 

Most of the festivities take place on Monday, Labor Day.  They have a town breakfast and then the parade.  Tess and Miles decorated their bikes and rode in the parade while Bryan, Bree, and I watched and gathered candy.  (You'll notice the tractors in the back...there are always quite a few of those in the parade.)

At the park they had a farm animal petting zoo, with chickens, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, ponies, turkeys, rabbits.  E-I-E-I-O.

 I made sure to hold Bree's hand flat so the pony didn't chomp one of her fingers, but in so doing, he actually took quite a chomp of my thumb knuckle.  Ouch!

 Then there are the rides.  Here is Bree doing the giant slide...

 And Miles & Tess opted to do the super trampoline-bungee-thing.  I love seeing the pics of Miles's face.  He cannot hide his feelings because his facial expressions are so funny.  He goes from ecstatic...

 ...to terrified.  People in line were even giggling at him because he was hollering and laughing so much.  He's a funny kid.

 Tess did awesome too.  She is a talented little gymnast.  Everyone tried to do backflips and most kids could eventually get 1 or 2 by the time their turn was over, but Miss Flexible Tess probably did 20--she was doing them in between every single bounce at the end!

It was a fun day!