Festival of Liars

Just kidding. They like to call it a Storytelling Festival. There is a pretty big one around here that has been going on for 25 years, much longer than I have lived here. I have been a couple times, but only for a few stories. This year, being at a new school, two of my kids got to attend. I'm not sure how they picked, but they chose both Ivory's and Daisy's grades to attend the festival.

It seemed like a good thing to volunteer for, so I found myself on a bus with Daisy headed to the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival.

They only have time for you to listen to a few people. We first heard from a kid. He told the story of the Three Little Pigs from the Wolf's perspective. Not bad for a kid.

Next up was Kim Harris. She does singing and storytelling together and she got all the kids involved, standing and doing actions. (See my Daisy in the pink?)

The last guy we listened to was hilarious. I had actually gotten too hot because I was sitting at the edge of the tent in the sun. I offered a few of the kids next to me (also in the sun) to come sit closer with me in a shaded section. Little did we know that there was a HUGE fan blowing in that section. We were right up close, but suddenly we were freezing to death. I was laughing my fanny off, but pulling my arms inside my sleeves to stay warm. We eventually moved back, but not before listening to a riveting tale by Bil Lepp. (Why one 'L'? Who knows? Maybe his parents didn't want him to have two double letters in his name.) He really has a gift for telling a story in just such a way that you can picture it all, and it is so funny.

After his story, we were back on the bus and driving to another location to have lunch. (These are silly faces, not sad faces. We were excited for lunch.)

Oh look, Daisy has blue eyes for once.

I felt we had a little too much time at lunch. I think we had over an hour to hang out and eat. Fortunately, we were at a large field and kids could run to their hearts content. I also met a very nice mom (also a volunteer on the field trip) who has a daughter named Pearl. (There are not a lot of Pearl's out there.) The other Pearl is in Daisy's class, and I have to admit that it throws me off sometimes. The kids said something about Pearl's mom, and that usually means me. But it was very fun to talk to her. We found out that we have kids in percussion as well. (That is pretty random I think.)

Ivory was also there and it was fun to spend time with her during lunch hour. She brought over her friend Ember and had me take a picture.

And apparently they had my phone on the return trip because I found a few pictures like this one.

I do enjoy more time for field trips now that all the kids are in school. And I'll keep going when the school is taking them fun places like Clear Creek and the Storytelling Festival.