42nd Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival 2012

This weekend our family decided to take a drive across the Bay and head on over to the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival.  It was a day full of food, family and fun that will not soon be forgotten. 

The festival took place over several city blocks on Main Street in the coastal town of Half Moon Bay, California.  Several blocks of Main Street were closed to though traffic so that the festival could flow into the streets. As we approached the venue you could see plenty of signs advertising outrageous parking prices.  Lucky for us, my resourceful husband found us FREE parking within minutes.  I knew at that point that it would be a fantabuLESS day!

Upon entrance to the festival, we were greeted by some offensive patrons holding up conflicting religious signs as pictured below.

Though they  never said a word, their signs spoke volumes.  I didn't expect to see this type of demonstration at a family friendly event, however it did give my husband and I an opportunity to speak to our children about the freedom of speech that we are privileged to enjoy in this county.  It was also a the perfect time to reinforce Sunday School lessons from months past that God is love and judgement lies with Him, and Him alone.  I personally find it sad and in poor taste to see the name "Jesus" and the word "hate" in the same sentence.

As we ventured deeper into the event, the streets were lined with local artists and vendors with unique art and delicious eats.  We entered for a chance to win Chevrolet Spark, sampled veggie burgers from Cascadian Farm, sweet potato tots from Alexia (coupons included), a variety of Lara Bars (coupons included), and even snagged a full size bag of Sweet Potato chips from Terra! Geico ,Wells Fargo and Chevrolet had lots of trinkets for the kids and my son Daymond even found a pizza cutter for me courtesy of Comcast!

Strolling down the streets was very challenging since there were so many vendors and yummy treats to indulge in. One vendor in particular really stood out and it was the Urban Farming booth. Not only did they have a unique easel style vegetable garden on display, but in exchange for an email address they  gave my daughter a plant to add to her vegetable garden at home! Stopping by the Urban Farming booth really impressed upon me no matter how small your living space is, you can always grow some type of food to feed your family.

This year they had the World's Biggest Mosaic Pumpkin on display. It was a whopping 12 feet wide, 7 feet tall, and weighed a hefty 6,000 pounds! They say everything is bigger in Texas, but I think we have them beat in the pumpkin category.

Music filled the air as we made our way to down Main Street. Radio Disney had a stage that featured kids performers and Safeway sponsored a stage for the grown ups! While Mom ate luscious pumpkin ice cream and listened to the music, the kids took advantage of the Root Beer Float booth that was manned by the Half Moon Bay Fire Fighters.  The floats were a bit on the pricey side, but it was for a good cause and remember we didn't have to pay admission.

In addition to the eats and treats, there were rock climbing walls and bungee trampolines for the young and young at heart to conquer!  The boys thought it looked easy from the ground, but as they got closer to the top they found it for themselves that it was not as easy as it looked from the ground.

 

We had the pleasure of watching the World Class Pumpkin Carver Farmer Mike as he created a Lorax pumkin. Since there were other things that we wanted to do before the closing of the festival we had to cut our visit short with Farmer Mike.  We did however get to see the Lorax pumpkin nearly finished.

By the end of the day we had eaten and played our way down Main Street.  The Frank's will definitely be back in Half Moon Bay for more fantabuLESS family fun next year!