Irish Days 2011

Irish Days…. Brings back so many memories of growing up. The little town in Illinois where my aunt lives has a festival every June called “Irish Days”.  I honestly don’t know how long it’s been going on. A long time. I do have very fond memories of going every year as a kid and spending the weekend at Aunt Di’s. Much of our family went. Grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was a time to come together and have fun. The adults got to visit and the kids got to have fun. There  was tractor pulls and bike races. Poker games. Carnival rides. Lots and lots of eating and laughter. Not much sleep was to be had.

Farmersville was and still is small town America. Everyone knows everyone and everyone watches out for everyone. I am not sure how true that is now but I know growing up that we couldn’t do anything wrong without our parents knowing about it. It was the type of town where you could stay out late without worries. Nobody locked their doors. It was safe. I have very, very fond memories of spending time with my cousins there.

Last year, we decided that we needed to revive this tradition in our family. Start taking our families to Irish Days so they can experience some of the stuff we did as a kid. Unfortunately, my family was not able to go. I still had a broken foot and couldn’t handle the car ride or being on my feet for that long. This year, not only were we going for Irish Days but we were also going to celebrate some milestone birthdays. My Aunt Mary Beth was turning 50. And that’s a big thing in our family. We have this little “ceremony” and she is inducted into the Red Hat club. That tradition started back about 9 years ago with my Aunt Julie and has been going strong ever since. My Aunt Di is also turning 60. There was much to celebrate.

The kids all had a wonderful time. Irish Days isn’t Irish Days without a parade. And tons of candy. It was so much fun watching the kids really enjoy themselves. It also makes me feel old. It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that we were the kids getting into trouble, not being the parent and having to watch for the kids. It is amazing though to see the next generation come along. There are so many kids already! I have to think it was like this when we were little. All the cousins getting together. The six sisters visiting and having a good time. Now it’s the cousin’s kids getting together and making their own memories. I hope they make some very lasting ones. I hope they can look back and recall all the fun that they had as much as I can.

I think we are definitely keeping this tradition going.

 

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