Happy Friday! It's Kali—the other girls and I wanted to share our Tivoli Fest 2015 experience with you all today! Every year, on Memorial Day weekend, Elk Horn, IA holds Tivoli Fest. It's Elk Horn's annual celebration of Danish heritage (you can read more about it here). My parents grew up in Elk Horn/Kimballton, and my whole family lives around there. Us girls don't always make it back every year, but luckily this year, we all made the trip back. Zac had weekend-long golf plans in Lincoln, so he did not come with me, but Zeke and Tad were able to also join us! It's always fun when the whole family gets together.
Saturday always starts off with the Mill to Mermaid 5k run. I tried it once years ago, and those hills just aren't for me, but Megan and Shelbie have competed in it for as many years as they can remember. This year, they were even lucky enough to have Tad and Zeke join them in the run. The race starts at the windmill in Elk Horn, and stretches all the way to the Mermaid fountain in Kimballton. It's definitely a challenging 5k due to the very long, very large hills.
Megan ended up winning her age group (20-29 years old)! Overall, Tad placed 6th, Zeke placed 9th, Megan placed 13th, and Shelbie placed 25th.
Post-run, our grandma Nadine made them some aebleskiver (aka the most delicious pancake balls ever) to recover!
I joined everyone in Elk Horn right as the parade was about to start. As in previous years, my mom had her Barnyard Boutique booth setup, and as always, I wanted everything!
The weather wasn't the greatest (as usual on Memorial Day weekend), but it wasn't too terrible. I just wish the sun would've come out for a little bit! After the parade and lunch at our aunt Sherri's, we walked around to check out the different vendors. We also obviously had to go to the Egg Krate while we were there. I didn't end up buying anything this time, but Megan found a few gems.
After that, we all agreed it was time for a beer. We headed over to the fire station, where the Iowa Craft Beer Tent was all set up for the weekend.
In all the years I've been going to Tivoli Fest and just to Elk Horn in general, I don't remember ever taking a tour of the famous windmill, so since this was also Tad's first time at Tivoli Fest, we thought it'd be fun to finally do it!
After heading back to our parents house for a quick power nap, we went back to Elk Horn for the night's festivities. We did a little pre-gaming at Sherri and Joel's, watched the fireworks, then headed back to the fire station for more beer and music! All in all, it was a great weekend. If you've never been to Tivoli Fest, I'd highly recommend checking it out next year!
You can check out my Tivoli Fest 2013 recap here!
No comments :
Post a Comment