Saturday night at the movies…… I just love the drive in's they have here. It's not that you see them every 10 miles but they are still here. This kind of entertainment is for everybody, families come here with their children, put them on an airbed with pillows and blankets, a lot of young couples but I'm not sure they're actually going to see the movie… anyway, we bought tickets for a double feature, parked our car, got snacks and a couple of drinks and enjoyed the movie. Somehow this happened to me before but when the movie was over the battery was dead so we needed a jump. Enough cars around so no problem at all!

Americans love their fairs and the season for these events is just getting started. You'll probably notice that we will visit one occasionally but we'll kick off with the Lisbon Lilac Festival. There were loads of activities so I won't bore you with all the details…. There was of course the cow patty bingo. If you ever come across one you just have to go. In this case they painted a bingo card on the tennis court with chalk. You can buy a "square" which means you pick for instance number 8. They put the cow in for an hour or so and wait for the cow to do its business. The square where the patty lands on is the winning square. We had number 29 and 72 and you won't believe it but we actually won the damn thing???? Which was just amazing:-) They had several contests going on and the winners were all announced so when they tried to announce Family de Jonge I really should have taped it. She slaughtered our name but hey we don't mind the details. We were $ 75,00 richer and really made an effort in pronouncing our name.

Every festival has an eating contest of some kind and in this case we had the pleasure of watching a pie eating contest. Yup, we taped it! Enjoy the film. Don't forget your pie:-) To end the festivities they have a parade. We love parades! They come in all sorts and sizes and we had the pleasure of watching a fire truck brigade. Before you watch the short film we made be sure to get some earplugs and sunglasses. All the trucks are using their sirens and lights…. Just so you know. You could buy tickets for a raffle to support the fire department….. first prize was a truckload of fire wood so I don't know whether they are bored or need more work put they sure can put the fire out when needed… I mean, they have enough trucks!

Because this is memorial day weekend we wanted to see one of the memorial day parades. We have May 4th and over here it's memorial day so it's kind of the same and we wanted to see how Americans remember their soldiers. It's very impressive. A lot of people volunteer, high school children are involved, actual shooting (they should have warned me about that I could barely hold on to my drink) and of course the national anthem. Over here everybody knows it by heart.

The weekend ended with a pot luck bbq. For those who aren't familiar with the concept….. you bring your own so you get a lot of different dishes which maybe don't complement each other but taste great!