This weekend was the 73rd annual Tulip Time Festival in Pella.  The theme for this year's celebration was "Where Dutch Traditions Bloom".  We had heard that it was going to be cold and rainy on Friday and Saturday, so we decided to go Thursday night.  I had wondered if there would be that much to see and do of an evening, but it turned out to be a really fun family outing!

Pella is a Dutch community known for its windmills, tulips, pasteries and meats, wooden shoes and Dutch names such as Van Engelenhoven, Vander Ploeg, and Jaarsma.  We were drawn especially to the Jaarsma name since it happened to be on the sign above the door to a bakery.  Not surprisingly, it was a popular place to be.  While we waited in line, a woman gave us a sample of their Dutch letters.  But, when it was our turn to order, I chose a creme horn... my favorite!  Yum!   

The Vermeer Mill is a replica of an authentic 1850 Dutch grain grinding windmill.  It is the tallest working windmill in the United States.  We had already taken a tour of it on a previous visit to Pella, so we opted to stay on the square for the other festivities.  Here is a sampling of what we saw:

I let the boys choose which tulips they wanted to pose in front of and they chose these since they were the tallest:

Each fall, Pella plants more than 100,000 new tulip bulbs to assure quality blooms for their festival in May.  Here is one of their very unusual variety of tulips with a mixture of orange and purple:

The "Flying Pans" steel drum band from the local college:

Street scrubbers cleaned the street before the parade began.  One little ornery girl threw a bucket of water at our 9-year-old son.  :-)  Notice their wooden shoes:

The parade started at 8:30 and included lighted floats, bands, and other Dutch specialty attractions:

The Pella Christian Jr. High Marching Band especially caught my eye with their authentic red wooden shoes.  Can you imagine walking the whole parade route in a pair of these?

Toward the end of the parade, lightning was flashing and then it started sprinkling.  But, as the crowd was quickly dispersing, our 9-year-old asked me to take one more picture...

For some reason, the boys had special memories of this particular water fountain from a previous visit to Pella.  Whatever.    Also, they didn't notice that their dad was hamming it up in the background until on the way back home.  To pass the time, they decided to look at the pictures on the camera.  When they came to this one, they said, "Daaaaaad!" 

But, this is the picture that I couldn't resist taking:

I admit that we have our share of times when our boys just don't get along.  That's why family outings like this are so important.  When we share fun times together, the annoyances, competitions, and other grievances seem to fizzle out and leave behind a more pleasant atmosphere.  That's when brothers become the "best of buds".