Bureau County Homestead Festival

My previous post was on my Class Reunion which are always held on Homestead Festival Weekend.  The Bureau County Pork Producers are the sponsors but it is the Homestead Festival Planning Committee that does a ton of work getting ready each year.  Kudos to the committee.

The Festival opens on Friday night with pulled pork sandwiches being served, an opening ceremony and a dance with music provided by the Generics. 

Saturday gets and early start with the Beta Sigma Phi Craft show at the Courthouse Square and across the street the Pork Producers serving up Pork Chop sandwiches or Pork Chop dinners.  Rod and I took Harry Potter and Indiana Jones, our Australian Shepherds, up to the craft show.  Since Harry Potter is a therapy dog and Indiana Jones is a therapy dog-in-training.  The craft show provides many training experiences, i.e. children, noises, smells, other dogs, and traffic.

 

Harry is on the left and Indiana on the right.

 

Indy greatly improved in the first hour.  He gets very excited about the kids petting on him and wants to jump on them.  He changed quickly and learned to just lay down and wait while we visited.  Of course, Harry is the professional and sets a good example.

 

I wished I had taken more pictures this weekend so to share more of the sights we experienced.

I really got wrapped up in visiting with many folks that I only see this time of year. 

 

Rod and I spent a lot of time with Norine (on the right) and Carmen (left) before the parade.  Norine and her husband watched the parade with us and later we hooked up to have dinner at the Wyanet VFW Hall.  This was Fred Potter's idea and his wife and daughter also joined us.  Tracy Brenneman, another classmate was also there eating and joined up with us.  Melody Turner Sissel stopped by to catch up with Norine.  What really got me to chuckling, was after dinner we had to move up the bar area so the cleaning crew could clean the dining room.  At the new table we all started talking about our jobs, small businesses and/or blogs.  We all started swapping business cards.  It looked like we had created some new card game!

 

Sunday included a Flea Market at the Bureau County Fairgrounds, more pork chops, and a car show on Main Street.  We had to take Rod's mom for medical treatment, so I don't know how things went Sunday.  It rained and that may have cancelled a few things.

 

I am truly blessed to have wonderful friends and classmates. 

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 



Class Reunion

Picture taken by Fred Potter Photography!

This weekend was my class reunion held at Chapel Hill Country Club (alias, Bureau Valley County Club or Hunter's Ridge Country Club.)  We had approximately 32 attend out of a class of approx. 199.  Unfortunately, we have seven classmates residing in heaven.  I hope they were watching over us.

A BBQ dinner was provided by Neal & Shorty's which very tasty with a choice of brisket, pulled pork or chicken.  All usual side dishes such as potato salad, taffy apple salad (my favorite) along with cole slaw and baked beans.

We didn't have a DJ or band just visited.  Kathy Seidel, our host (pictured above), provided some interesting trivia questions about Princeton High School and answers to keep us on our toes.  The memory table included our yearbooks and pictures of those that passed away.  After dinner many of us grabbed the yearbooks to look at the pictures and compare notes about what we knew about the others who were not able to attend.  The interesting thing was I felt that most of us have not change so much just our hair styles. (Below is Carmen Wilson Rod and Norine Catlano Tithof)

There was a few of the girls who joined in a chorus or two of our school song.  They did a great job.  We could have been standing at a football game.  It certainly helped bring back fond memories of cool fall nights, cheerleaders, pom pom girls, band and flag corps marching at halftime.

After the reunion ended, we adjourned to Wise Guys Bar & Restaurant to finish catching up on what everyone has been doing and telling stories. 

I hope our fellow classmates will start planning to be at the next reunion in five years.  Please mark your calendars to join us.

Yours in quilting,
Terry