March 7 - Moomba Festival

Let's go back a day to Saturday the 6th. I was on the computer talking to a cousin and Seth was watching a video. I made the comment that it was getting very dark. All of the sudden it sounded like a huge bucket of golf balls were being dropped on the roof. We looked outside and sure enough golf ball sized hail covered our balcony. After a few minutes of that the rain and wind came. It rained for several hours. We went to a friends house that evening but we didn't think much of the weather besides seeing quite a few trees down.

Our friends had the television on and I sat and watched part of the news. This storm had brought so much rain that parts of the city were flooded. They had to close one of the major train stations because the hail had broken a few windows and it flooded. A major sports stadium as well. They showed pictures of the Moomba Festival and it was completely deserted and there was a foot of water everywhere. Talking to a friend later she said they had been caught in the storm at the festival with their young children and it had been a scary experience.

Anyway, we decided to try to go on Sunday to this festival as there were supposed to be a lot of children's activities. If I hadn't watched the news the night before, I wouldn't have known there was a storm and flooding the day before. Everything was cleaned up and running as normal.

So I'm not sure about the origins of the festival. We didn't see the entire thing, but it was a lot of fun. They had rides, a petting area, craft tents and face painting tents. The rides required paid tickets but everything else we did was free.

At the craft tent they were making the flowers attached to the wooden people in this picture. You can't really tell what they are, but that's what they are supposed to be. It was a little difficult for Lilly, cutting felt and then plastic. I did most of it but she liked one of them enough to bring it home.



These butterfly things were walking around and Lilly was scared of them. Once she saw one she was completely stressed and crying but we did what we could to get her to see it was just a person.



The last thing we saw were these cubby houses. They were built by various organizations to be auctioned off to raise money for a group that builds additions on houses for teenagers (or something along those lines). Anyway, several of the cubbies were two stories. One had hook up for water and electricity. They were pretty cool. We did buy a ticket for one that was being raffled. Although if we had won it we would have had to park in at a friend's house. The one we are standing in front of had a ladder to the upstairs which is in the back, more of a balcony. The inside was decorated as if it was a camping cabin. Very cute!