Lavender

We had a couple of adventures the past couple Saturdays, so here they are.

On the 7th we went to Lavender Days, which is something we did last year as well, which is something we enjoy. There is a farm, the Young Living Family Farm (a long semi-interesting backstory about the questionable founder and its MLM counterpart will go unmentioned here) in Mona, just past Santaquin. There are huge flowing fields of lavender on either side of the road, and a big organic garden with vegetables sprouting everywhere. They have distilleries where they distill essential oils from their plants, and little lined-up stacks of greenhouses with misty windows. There are also a medieval village out back, a pond with swans and paddleboats, an old west main street strip, a playground, barns and tons of animals (horses, sheep, Barbados sheep, goats), a shop and so on.

They do this 5K run at 7 am. Last year we ran it, and it was nice, not too hot yet so early in the morning--you run through the lavender and the strips of purple stretch on and on. This year though, we were babysitting for our friends Dave and Michelle, so we had their two youngest kids, Torin (5 and Jarom's friend) and Brianne (2 and Bella's friend). They had spent the night. So we got up early, brought two joggers and threw the kids in the car with instant breakfasts spilling all over them, and we got there late. Way late--about 7:30. The run had started and people were already coming in. I mean, this was a run, a real competition with prizes and everything. People weren't wasting any time. We were so late that we didn't even bother to walk it, although we did still get our shirts and little prize packs with an essential oil and a water bottle.

Merchants were setting up their many booths, very much like our farmer's market. In fact, most of the people we're used to seeing at the Provo farmer's market were there. We bought some mixed flower honey and the kids got snow cones. The real hit for the kids, especially Jarom, was the climbing wall. All the kids climbed it at least a little. But Jarom just kept going back for more, and on his third attempt, he made it all the way to the top of the hardest side of the kids' wall. He's a natural climber (I made it to the top of the hardest side of the adult wall, but Jarom's victory is much more mentionable than mine). That's where Jarom and Torin spent most of their time, on the wall at on the bouncehouse slide. We also did a ring toss where we won a red bottle of some berry-derived superdrink.

The kids also got to ride horses around a little walking wheel: Jarom rode Pepperoni and Bella rode Buttercup. Then Bella and Brianne got to see the Lavender Fairy, which was something Bella had been waiting weeks for, ever since she received the "invitation" (a real printed invitation) at the farmer's market. They had a tea party with juice and cookies, played and told stories. Later we rode a carriage through the farm, where we stopped at the lavender field on the other side of the road. We used clippers to cut our own bundles of lavender, which we still have stashed around the kitchen. It's the best scent--this we all know--but being in a field with that color and that smell is quite wonderful. Before we finally left in the early afternoon, four hours after arriving, we watched some jousting. Yes, there was jousting, not entirely authentic, more like an obstacle course, a competition. The knights flung spears at haystacks with targets painted on them, and they jabbed at hanging rings and that sort of thing; they and their horses were fully costumed and armored, and the horses neighed and reared back and squires ran out to arrange the course and gather dropped weaponry. There had been a smoky haze all morning due to the Utahn wildfires, and the afternoon eventually became scorchingly hot, so when we did leave we stopped on the way home at the Red Barn in Santaquin and had ice cream and drinks. The kids fell asleep immediately; they were exhausted after getting up so early and having that kind of fun.