Stockley Gardens Arts Festival

We've been going to the Stockley Gardens Arts Festival for a several years. Since Benny was four and screeching out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the children's stage with the rest of the little squirts in his first year class. Last year he played his violin at the spring festival, but last weekend we missed the fall performance because we were on our way home from Boston.

On Sunday, safely back from our trip and eager to enjoy the hot Virginia weather after our stint in the frozen north, we walked down to the festival to look at the art and pat all the dogs.



We saw lots of art. Here was my favorite canvas (the one on the right):



Benny got his face painted to look like Leroy. Very effective:



Sadie and Benny both had some shaved ice. Benny invented a watermelon/chocolate combo, which sounds nauseating but was actually really good, the remains of it that I was asked to finish anyway. Sadie went with a more traditional strawberry:



So, I put it to you. Is this not an acceptable substitute for the festival carnival death-trap situation? Where they ride on the wooden roller coaster with the squivering nuts and trembling bolts? Where they sit on the creaking ferris wheel which has to be held up on one side by a local farmer? The one with the dancing bear, half eaten with mange, straight from Russia, who's wearing a frilled collar stained with his own rabid drool and the blood of his most recent victim? And eat chocolate tacos made out of silicon and drink lemonade from actual human skulls? Okay, not the Russian bear, but you get the idea. Can I not count this as our carnival experience for the season? There were painted faces, frozen treats, dogs galore, and Benny even got to do his crazy dance (inexplicable, and I didn't video it, unfortunately) in front of a big audience at the "folk singers with guitars" stage.

I'm counting it. Pungo Strawberry Festival, you're dead to me.