Decorah, Iowa. October 2010. Reids.

Another year, another Harvest Festival at Seed Savers Exchange.

We headed up on Friday, and made our first stop at Mabe's Pizza before heading to the house that we had rented for the weekend. Mabe's was, of course, Mabe's. We had a regular with extra sauce. As always. Sorry, you Luther people, but Mabe's is JUST PIZZA. It's not bad, but it's not handed down directly from the gods, either.

While at Mabe's, we had the opportunity to watch the Decorah HS Homecoming Parade, which went right down Water Street outside Mabe's front window. My high school (Ankeny) never did anything like this for Homecoming, so it was kind of fun to watch another high school's parade.

Our two families rented an old farmhouse for the weekend. Carolan Guest House is just a few minutes north of Decorah. The owners built themselves a new house on their property, and rent out the old house to travelers. It's definitely an old house, and did have that My Great Grandma Lives Here scent and decorating sense.



It has three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. Nothing fancy, but reasonably priced and awesome for two families who have small kids - nobody next door, upstairs, or downstairs to worry about. The house had lots of toys, as well, but the antique typewriter was, I think, the biggest hit with the kids.

Andrew was happy because there was a creek for fishing right on the property!

After a fun-filled trip to Walmart for some groceries, we ate dinner at the house and then hung out with our extremely wound up children. I also discovered the deliciousness that is Hard Cider.

Hey, it's what the Founders drank.

Saturday, we had muffins, apples, and bacon for breakfast before heading into town for a stop at Blue Heron Knittery for the girls, and a secondhand DVD and CD store for the boys. I finally found the yarn for my Lord of the Rings socks, and maybe the right yarn for a pair of socks I'm making for pay. Genna helped me shop.

We met up at Magpie Coffeehouse for some coffee and snacks before heading to Seed Savers.

Then off to Seed Savers. We enjoyed the soup samples (they have a contest among local restaurants every year, this year's featured ingredient was beans), the other food samples, the pumpkin carving and rolling, and strolling the grounds.

However, this year's event was definitely a major let-down after last year's. Last year, they had more activities for the kids - beanbag tossing, storytelling, etc. They had someone manning the pumpkin roll activity. They had more local vendors, such as wineries. This year, they had only one local vendor, the co-op.

And it was pretty cold!!

We did still have a good time, and the kids enjoyed themselves. And we got to take more pictures of their apple press, which is just like ours, but macked out.

In the late afternoon, Abby and Andrew went fishing and we hung out with all the kids. And though the wives voted for eating in, the husbands voted for eating out, and they won. We went to Dolce Vita. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, either. I mean, it was all edible. Just nothing special.

Andrew's New Orleans PoBoy, Genna's Grilled Cheese, Poppers for appetizer (HOT!)

My Gyro, Randy's Ribeye Special (fatty!!), Abby's Lemon Chicken PoBoy

Kids had Spaghetti, Asher slept, and Andrew had Cheesecake for dessert.

The kids were much calmer Saturday evening, and we enjoyed some TV, reading, knitting, and, eventually sleeping.

Unfortunately, three of us (Wally, Randy, Andrew) were up a few hours later, sick.

Sunday, we got up and loaded up, then headed in to Mabe's for more pizza. Randy took home 10 half-bakes for himself and family.