--- Irish Day ---

Noal attended his first ever Irish Day festival this year.  For those of you who aren't familar with "Irish Day" it is this wonderful, only big thing in a small town, carnival/parade/flea market that occurs in Erin every year the week of St. Patrick's Day.  For those of you from Marshall County, think Tater Day.  From those of you not from Marshall County, yes Tater Day is a real event and you are reading the blog of Miss Tater Day 2000.  No joke.

"Erin - A wee bit of Ireland in Tennessee."

I can honestly say that the quote above was not quite the first impression I got when I came to Erin with Chad for the first time about 8 years ago, but hey whatever floats your boat (or billboard).  I can say that for a Tennessee version of a St. Patrick's Day celebration, Irish Day is a good time.  Well, for most -- see picture of screaming child below.

On Friday night, the Mitchell family loaded up and went to the carnival.  It was complete with plenty of fattening, delicious carnival grub, kiddy rides and rides to make you lose your carnival grub, and enough second hand smoke to put you in the grave, but we all still had a great time none-the-less.  Trace actually enjoyed most of the rides he went on.  What you see above happened to be part of a chain reaction among other kids on the ride and I think he just felt like joining in.

We really enjoyed the swinging bridge and blow up slide!  My husband got the boys ready before heading out for the adventure and I think that Noal's shirt did seem to fit the night.

The next day we continued on with our Irish Day festivities by going to the pancake breakfast at our church, Erin Church of the Nazarene, to help send our teens to NYI.  I am all up for pancakes, especially when the procedes go to a such good cause!  After the church pancake breakfast, we made our way, double stroller aka land yatch, and all to browse the flea market.  Thanks to never carrying cash, Chad managed to take me shopping and not buy a single thing.  A good day in his books.

To wrap up our Irish Day festivities we headed back to the church where we sat and watched the Irish Day parade.  Trace, with only one incident of time out for running into the street, was able to consume enough candy that we should be good until the next Irish Day rolls around.  We enjoyed some family time as most of the Mitchell clan and Nana joined us while watching the parade:

All in all we had some wonderful family time together at Irish Day and I am looking forward to Irish Day in the years to come if they are anything like this one!