The Apple Jack Festival in Nebraska City, NE

Spoke on the phone with Julie today, and she said that Sam keeps asking if there is a Marlayna Alert? I asked if he was asking about a new blog with Marlayna in it and she said yes. I guess he asks quite often and Julie says, "No, do you want to look at the old one?" and he says, "Yes!" So, I got my act together and blogged. This first picture is dedicated to Sam! Here's a new Marlayna Alert...just for you!

This weekend we went to the Apple Jack Festival in Nebraska City Nebraska. It's about 40 miles southeast of Lincoln, not too far. It was pretty fun.

Nebraska City is where Arbor Day got it's start. They have a whole Arbor Day Farm and during the Apple Jack Festival they have many events going on around town. We spent most of the day at the Arbor Day Farm. Next year we have decided to go and do all the free stuff. We missed the Parade which was 3 hours long and pretty good (according to someone in our ward that also went and we spoke to later).



This is Carly the Cardinal the official mascot of Arbor Day. She got side tracked by some other kids before we could snap a shot with her full attention, but oh well.
This is the Lied Greenhouse, pretty cool to see tree seedlings at all stages.


This is the apple tasting. This woman talked about three types of apples and we got to taste each one...it was cool!

We got a free tree for coming to the Farm during the Festival, two white pines...we gotta get some pots to plant them in. The trees are in the tubes...one of the tubes is blocking Marley's face...oops! But, she looks fascinated by it.
This was the Tree Adventure Discovery Ride. We did go on it because it was an extra $3.50 and we had already paid $6.50 each to get in, so we opted to not take the ride through the orchard.
They had spinney trees. They looked painful.
They had cool things to do along the path as you walked from one event to the next. This one was basically, "guess what you are smelling." You take a nice long deep sniff at the top of each bird house looking thing and then open the door on the bottom and it tells you what the smell is. Most of them were trees or nuts, but one was Deer musk and it was STINK-Y.

This was a stop to help you hear everything in the forest. These cones really did intensify the sound. I could hear people talking 10+ feet away, crystal clear. They were saying, "Look at that lady with the pineapple shirt...she totally has a spare tire!"

After I walked away, I said, "Man! I could hear really well with those, I need some for everyday use." Nathan, quickly agreed.

This looks like it was Marley's favorite part. We walked up a few flights of stairs and enjoyed the canopy tree house. It was more like a tower than a treehouse.
This was a tent that had a food demos going all day...and what kind of recipes were featured!?!?! APPLE!! We have quite a few to try.

Kettle Corn!!! This particular vendor was super pricey, but we found a more affordable one later...you'll see. But, this guy was fun to watch because he actually had a huge kettle.

We got Carly's Guidebook and they had punches at various stations so you could stamp your guidebook! It was fun!

"And and then I went to the movies and sat on the balcony. And I brought some fake puke I had mixed up at home and I dropped it over the side and made a sound like this, hOOAhhhh, hOOAhhh, hOOAhhh! It was the most horrible thing I've ever done! And everyone started puking all over each other..." (name that movie and doesn't Marley look like that character in this picture?)

This was one of the child play areas. Well, our child can't play yet so we fed her.

They had a little theatre that featured clips of movies that had scenes with trees, people talking about trees, etc. I really enjoyed it. Don't ask Nathan what he thought of it. Marley's first experience with black lights...she liked it!

This was lunch time. Next year we'll bring our own lunch because these two Apple Chicken Salad Croissants were 12 bucks!! No, that did not include a drink and chips...that was a extra $2.25!

But, two yummy over priced croissants at the Apple Festival with Marley....priceless.

This was one of the booths at the craft show and it was all stuff made from gourds. Nathan's sister is an art major and she had to do some gourd art so we snapped a shot.

If you look closely there is a witch with a very tall hat...that's a really tall gourd.

Kettle Corn! It was GOOD! Fresh and warm!

And Oh So Yummy!
These carriages were in a little museum. They were really cool and really old...and they were all owned by the Morton Family who started Arbor day.

They reminded me of great movies that have carriage scenes like...

Ever After

The Count of Monte Cristo

Darby O'Gill and the Little People

Pride and Prejudice

Etc. Etc. Etc.

It was a super busy day for the little town of Nebraska City. There were TONS of people and tons of cars parked along the side of the road. It was a fun day.

Cool house we saw on the hike back to the car.

(I would like to beg and plead to the powers that develop, maintain, improve blogger. PLEASE create a better way to post a lot of pictures and be able to easily write captions. Inevitably everytime I inadvertently delete one or more! Please! Help! It's so frustrating and then when I look at my blog the format never is right either! And always has huge random spaces that I have no idea how in the heck they got there! Sheesh!)