Eat Your Lentils

Have you ever heard of lentils? My mom used to make a lentil soup that we absolutely detested (sorry, Mom), but when I got older, it suddenly became delicious! Up until this year, I had no earthly idea how or where lentils grew.

This is how they look in the Springtime.Then they dry out and are ready to be harvested...


into these little legumes shaped like contact lenses!

Well, it just so happens that our small town is famous (famous, I tell you) for its annual lentil festival. It's the closest thing we have to a big celebration, so we were excited to attend.

Josh rode in the Tour de Lentil - 100K bike ride, so he missed most of the festivities. He's somewhere here in this pack of bikers.

Our friends, the Lindsays, agreed to join the kids and me for the morning festivities and parade watching.

I think this girl is Little Miss Lentil. Either that, or her mom dressed her up in this outfit and tiara and decided to march her in the parade. The world may never know.

Now we're talkin'! Here is the Lentil Festival "Royalty". They had the waving DOWN. Who wouldn't look elegant riding on the Lentil Express?

Our town's fire engine - grateful for that!

The kids loved these "cowboys" on horseback.

We even had a real, live float!

Washington State University's entire band and athletic programs marched. A couple of the football players were riding in a little red wagon. That was fun.

It wouldn't be a small-town parade without tractors!

I felt bad for this kid.
He must have had THE worst job of the entire parade.
"Pooper Scooper". Boo clapped for him anyway.

And then something magical happened.

We saw a group of lifeguards coming down the street from the Aquatic Center, where the kids took their swimming lessons. Yaks spotted his teacher, Danny. Danny has been an awesome instructor. Yaks just loves him (I'll post about him tomorrow).
Danny is in the funny hat with the half blue/half red shorts

So, we started waving and clapping for Danny, of course. Yaks was pointing out his swimming teacher. Then suddenly, Danny breaks away from the pack, runs over to Yaks and gives him a little plastic parade toy. "Here ya go, Yaks!" The child was absolutely glowing, and my heart was absolutely bursting.

Following the parade, we went over to the park, where they had some activities and food. The kids played for a good 30 minutes in this bin of lentils (of course) looking for "dinosaur bones". We got some scoops of ice cream, and watched a few of the shows and then called it a day. I regret not sampling a bowl of Lentil Chili. Apparently, they have a Lentil Chili cookoff every year, and then they let everyone try the winning recipe. I guess there's always next year...