Nillie Bipper Weekend

This weekend was the 44th Annual Nillie Bipper Arts & Crafts Festival in Cleveland, TN.  Aaron's dad has been a driving force in the continued success of this festival, both as a board member and as a participating artist. 


We havent' been able to go for several years because we lived too far, but now that we're just a few hours away we thought we'd make an impromptu road trip...  We headed "over the river and through the woods", literally, on Friday night, and camped out in the hotel before our surprise attack on Saturday morning. 

Atticus had fun showing off his two-year old jumping skills and is very proud of his mouth full of teeth!

It won't surprise me if the hotel guests on either side of us complained to the front desk for all the noise we were making...they were happy noises, so at least that's good :)  Aaron, the tickle monster, was in full force!

We didn't tell anyone we were coming so it was a lot of fun to see John and Kathy's faces when we showed up bright and early Saturday morning!  SURPRISE!

  The weather was ALOT cooler than it had been so the breeze and cooler temps were a nice welcome, it made being outside much more enjoyable....  Atticus had a GREAT time, lots of new and exciting adventures, including riding on a horse!

We also went for a ride on the "Moo-Moo Train", not to be confused with a "Choo-Choo Train". It was a really cute ride for the kiddos....  Atticus was too small to ride by himself so we snuggled up into one of the cow cars and went for a ride, yelling "moo-moo" all the way!  Please note the name on the side of the cow car...that's how I felt smushed inside of it!

So the food at Nillie Bipper isn't the healthiest food you'll ever eat, but it's festive and yummy...think "fair-food".  Below I am getting ready to dive into an order of potato ribbons - it's a cross between a french fry and a potato chip - OMG, so good!  And, no, I did NOT eat the whole thing by myself, had lots of willing helpers. 

The three John's hung out by the tractors for awhile...Atticus loved to hear them go "putt-putt-putt", it was loud, but he liked it.  He looked so small on top of that huge tractor!!

Steering the tractor...for pretend of course!

Grandma bought Atticus a new cozy-car to tool around in while we were at Nillie Bipper...Turns out he liked pushing it around more than he liked riding in it :)  You'll also notice he's got a few balloon creations attached to his car, it wouldn't be Nillie Bipper without a balloon dog to walk!

It was a really nice weekend, quick, but very enjoyable, and great to surprise the grandparents! 

I love this picture...too bad Atticus has his corncob smack in the middle of his precious little face!!