Ebby and me at the Mississippi border.

Closeup of the Chihuahua with an attitude!

Ebby and me at the Louisiana Border

Ebby and me at the Texas border.

The trip back was another story.  There were three of us, Me, Scott, and our three year old grandson William in the front cab of our little truck for the 14 hour trip back home.  Ebby lived in my lap the entire ride back.  All is well though.  We made it home without incident, unless you count the first hour in the truck when William turned to me and basically lost all his orange juice he had taken in before we left.  It was a mess, but we survived.

This year my dad and I competed in the King and Queen Dance again.  There were 21 couples competing this year and we didn’t even make it past the first cut.  We had fun though and the couple who won were far superior dancers and will represent the festival well in the year to come.

Pardon the No Smoking sign, the moment was right so the photo was taken.

It is so wonderful for a daughter to be able to dance with her father!

Are we having fun yet? or Will this song ever end?

My Daddy and Me!

All the contestants are positioned around the dance floor.

Here is the video of our 2009, meager attempt at stardom…

On Saturday, we went to the parade as usual, but the parade was a huge disappointment this year.  Not only did it start about an hour late because of an inadvertently parked train across the intersection, but there were bands included in the floats that had absolutely NOTHING with Czech heritage, except perhaps that the members were residents of the greater Ennis area.  These bands were beyond metal in flavor and there was not a polka to be found.  Sad, really.  If Ennis wants to do something to promote the Polka Festival in the future they might want to try updating the website and begin thinking “nationally” again.  They are, after all, the National Polka Festival.  Ok, rant is over…  The best part of the parade for me was seeing Ebby all decked out in her costume.  She is truly a Czech/Mex dog!  Ha Ha

This is why the parade is late!!

Am I handsome or what?

Nana, William, Bryan (my son), Sara (his wife), and Ebby waiting for the parade

We will not be attending this festival next year (or probably for a few years to come), mainly because we want to go visit some other festivals in other parts of the country.  Now that I have my supply of costumes, we can dance in style throughout Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Ohio, to name a few.  Stay tuned here for updates on our adventures to a polka festival near you.

Hopefully, if I can find time, I will post again with photos of my sand castle building and ocean swimming adventure…stay tuned…

William

The Parade

William especially liked the parade. He said “Hi” to everyone who passed by and even caught the eye of a fireman who stopped to visit with him.

The Food

Scott and his future daughter-in-law, Sara, can really put away the food! They spent most of the time at the festival eating. Here is a sample of what they consumed from the street vendors.

Saturday afternoon the kids left to head back to Colorado. Dad took the rest of us out to dinner at Bubba’s as a belated birthday present for me. This was an interesting place, to say the least. They have a “convenience store” type refrigerator as you walk in filled with steaks. If steak is what you came for, you literally pick out your raw steak (wrapped in plastic wrap) and take it to your table where your wait-person will take it from you and bring it back, with sides, cooked to your specifications. Yum, Yum!! The steaks were great!!!

The Dancing

The evening was topped off by dancing to the music provided by several very good bands. One of the bands that Scott likes a lot is the Academy Award winning band Polka Freak Out. They play everything from Bach to Tex-Mex to traditional Czech polkas. The accordion/trumpet player, Alex Meixner, is a 4th generation musician and is truly one of a kind. Every time I watch him play I think he is going to have a heart attack because he jumps around so much. Way more energy than I will ever have!

The Oklahoma Czech Dancers were at the festival again this year and they preformed beautifully. We always look forward to seeing them.

Family Photos

Family photos were at the top of the agenda for day one. We took the kids downtown to take some photos of them in “costume”.

We managed to get a 5 generation photo at the hall that evening. These photos are quite rare and we actually have been lucky enough to get three different ones so far in this family. The family members are listed from left to right and there relationship to William is noted: William Fillmer, Bryan Fillmer (Dad), Deborah Fillmer (Grandmother), Grace Dubuque (Great-great Grandmother), David Platt (Great Grandfather).

We Are Famous

Wow, I couldn’t believe it when a reporter from the Ennis Journal called our house in Alabama and conducted a 30 minute phone interview with me about the costumes and the upcoming contest. The article she wrote was very in depth and I was tickled when some of my family members came up to me at the festival and said “hey, we saw you made the paper”. Too cool! You can read the article online through the newspaper link above or here.

Contest Photos

Last, but not least, here are some photos of the contest that evening. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t win, but there were 20 couples to start with, so we were not sure of our chances right then. Apparently the number 5 is not a lucky one for us. Any suggestions for a number choice next year? Enjoy the photos and leave me a comment if you can.

I am going to take this opportunity to coin a term, “Pass A Long” or PAL. Since I won’t be knitting this hat again in the foreseeable future, and therefore have no use for the yarn or pattern anymore, I would like to “Pass A Long” the three skeins of yarn and the pattern to the first person to comment on this post who would like to make this hat. Unlike a KAL, all you need to do to participate in this PAL is comment on this post and let me know you would like to have the yarn and pattern and I will “Pass” is along to you. What I would request of you is that you make the hat, and then “Pass A Long” the remaining yarn and pattern to the next person who would like to make the hat. This way the yarn gets used and several of you get to have fun with this pattern. You can PAL the yarn and pattern using whatever format you like. A blog entry would probably be best so others could see your hat too.

The next quick knit I am doing will be a hat with the same pattern in a silver/gray color to look like a Hershey’s Kiss. When I am done with that one I will PAL the yarn and pattern for it likewise. Who knows, perhaps we will start a trend.

On another note, Mr. K and I went out this morning to the park and shot some photos of the Secret of the Stole for the cover shot of the pattern and the web image. I wish so badly that I could show you all how beautiful it looks finished. Oh well, only 4 more weeks to go and then, if you are a member of the Secret of the Stole KAL group, you will have one of your own.