Squeaky Cheese, Kenyan Bikers & Weekend Fun

  This weekend was the MCC Sale.  I’ve been going to this sale, held at the fairgrounds, since I was Destiny’s age, except we used to drive up from Hesston and stay the weekend in our motor home. I LOVED IT!  Dale grew up going each year too.  This is something we plan to continue to do with our family for years to come!!!!

 

    MCC stands for Mennonite Central Committee and has been around for 90 years. Each year all over North America, thousands of volunteers come together to raise money for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) for the relief of suffering in the world.

  For example, over $5 million was raised in 2005 with 88 percent sent to the field.  Amazing!

  There is something for everyone at this sale – quilts, artwork, crafted woodwork, homemade foods, antiques and crafts. Often there is music and lots of fun activities for kids including an auction just for them. 

  There was a kids building full of inflatables and mini golf so that was our first stop, of course!!!!!!

  Next, we were off to find something to eat…..

The MCC Sale offers a full German Dinner buffet, called the “Feeding of the Multitude”.  It features verenika, ham gravy, sausage, bohne beroggi, borscht, cherry and pluma moos, pies, bread and butter and relishes.  The line stretches down the sidewalk as far as the eye can see around supper time! (Thankfully, we were LONG gone by then!) 

We went for snack time only, getting the children the much-anticipated “Squeaky Cheese”, or Cheese Curds, we buy each year.

 

  I packed crackers for our cheese curds and we got some New Years cookies to go with them.  YUM!  What a fun picnic!

Nana thought this wasn’t a very healthy or filling choice, so she bought us all some Verenika.  Sure, let’s add some more carbs to the mix, why not?!

 

You might remember me talking about Verenika from the Central Christian German Supper post.  They are fantastic!

  While we ate our picnic, the kids put on a show on the empty stage…..a little pig tail twirling and a little tap dancing ensued.

  Paxton, instead of napping as planned, decided to slide down his seat and get stuck.  Stinker!

 

Next, we stopped to see the Ukrainian Pysanky Eggs.

What originally began as a way of entertaining people standing in line for food at the sale over twelve years ago, has now become one more way of creatively raising money for Mennonite Central Committee.  We were able to watch them demonstrate the painstaking intricate art of decorating psanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs).  The eggs are hand decorated with an ancient wax-resist process using a brass funnel tool, bees’ wax, and dyes. The designs represent aspects of Christianity or other parts of life. Ideally the process starts with a farm fresh egg, its contents to be blown out when the decorating is complete.  They are beautiful!!!!    The kids save their money all year-long for this event, so after snack time, we headed to the Ten Thousand Villages Shop which features amazing handicrafts from countries spanning the globe.  All funds go to help world missions, for example $6 can buy a needy family a nice supply of milk.  There were so many beautiful things…… it was hard for the kids to make a choice!     They even had these awesome trivets and bowls made from old magazines.  After much debate, all 3 kids decided to get Bikers from Kenya that you can push along in front of you as you walk.

   By the time we got home, cleaned up and put everyone in pj’s, the kids were starving all over again, so we let them have a popcorn snack before their sleep over……4 kids and 3 Kenyan bikers, all in one room.  🙂  

   Saturday dawned gorgeous, so we decided to plant our garden. 

  After being on bed rest all last summer, I have been dying to get out and dig in the cool soil, so as soon as Pax went down for morning naps, we headed out. 

    This is the first year Ty and Avery were able to help and really get into it.  It was so fun, but I gotta tell ya, keeping all 3 of them busy proved to be a challenge of its own.  After the first row of onions went in, we found a system that worked for all my little helpers. 

  Next on the agenda: a picnic lunch and then nap time!

Grandma Eileen sent Dale home with 5 beautiful bushes to transplant from her house, so while he was still filthy from our garden project, I put him to work in the front flower beds.

 

 

Before & After:

  This brown one on the bottom left, will bloom maroon next year.  And there is a little bush way in the right corner that isn’t showing up in the photo. 

It looks SO much better!  Thanks Grandma!

  So, call me a homebody, but I LOVE weekends like this: one fun outing, followed by a home day and church on Sunday, then a lazy afternoon at home….perfect!  🙂

Happy Monday!

~T

  

  This post linked to Smockity Frocks.