Butter and weaving and dulcimers, oh my!

I've been plotting all month to drag my family to the Cedar Valley Settlers Celebration and Music Festival, which was held Sunday at the local metropark. I was not going to be deterred by minor setbacks like a grouchy toddler, a husband who was watching the minutes tick by until football started, or a crippling sinus headache. No, sir! We were going to see square dancing and we were going to have fun, dag-nabbit!

I believe Liza's heels actually left furrows through the parking lot as we hauled her to the gate.

And then she saw the "paint your own leaf stamp t-shirt" booth, and all was right with the world. Add to that some butter churning that resulted in getting to eat your own butter on cornbread that had been baked in a real dutch oven under hot coals, mix in some overachieving music teachers who didn't mind humoring a 4-year-old, add a splash of "sure, you can have a Sprite," and it was apparently the best trip ever.

Who's the cutest little fiddle player in the world? Liza, that's who.

She was oddly creeped out by the whole fiddle experience, and she couldn't wait to put it down. Something about having to hold it with her chin? Or maybe the lady was just freaky up close. I don't know, but I don't see Suzuki lessons in our future.

And who's that trying to beat a dulcimer into submission with a credit card for a pick? Liza, that's who.

Mr. Musically Inclined helps Liza get through a rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star that caused dogs to howl in three separate counties:

Liza loved that dulcimer. I don't know if it was the fact that it seemed more familiar because she knows how guitars and banjos work, or if she liked being able to read the notes on the chart and play along with other people, or she just liked the song, but we had to pretty much drag her out of that tent. And heck, for $60, we can buy a beginner one of our own! Much cheaper than getting a quarter-size violin, that's for sure.

One of the activities they had for the kids to try was a full-sized loom they were using to make a rag rug from strips of old t-shirts. Liza wanted nothing to do with it until she found out that if she helped weave it, she could put in an entry to win it, at which point she was practically knocking people out of the way to get to the contest entry forms. I persuaded her to let me sign up for the contest, as I didn't feel like waiting for 15 minutes for her to write her name just so on the little card. With hundreds of people there, it's not like we were going to win, anyway.

At 5:30 Sunday I found out that we won The Ugliest Rag Rug In The World. I had to scrape Liza off of the ceiling, she was so excited that she had won, especially when she found out we had to go over to the Nature Center to pick it up. So she got to visit the birds and the turtles and the frogs and the fish and the crawdad and the snakes and the spider, and I got to get my picture taken with TURRITW. I'll have to link to the photo if I find it - my hair was sticking straight up, I had on a shirt that I (ahem) may have recycled from the day before, and I wasn't wearing makeup. But next to the rug, hell, I look like a supermodel.