Frog Frestival

This weekend was, of course, quite busy. Mycal had to help with a carnival at the elementary school on base so we couldn't really go anywhere far but that was okay because we had heard that Waynesville would be doing their Frog Festival this weekend and we wanted to check that out. There were many fun things about the festival - starting with no entrance fee (always a little annoying...). The Chamber of Commerce holds a frog race where you can adopt a frog (a rubber ducky looking frog) and if it wins you get a scholarship or something like that. So of course we adopted 'frogs' that the girls got to pick out. (Don't know if we won the race as we had to go to the carnival before it was run...I'm thinking probably not...) There were ponies for riding, face painting and all the standard booths and eclectic food offerings that can be found at any outdoor event. Mycal had been joking earlier that maybe we could get some frog soup or something - thinking I'm sure of the artichoke brownies we had enjoyed at the Artichoke festival while living in CA. I told him that there probably wouldn't be any frog food because - well seriously who cooks frog? I am here to admit that I was in the wrong. While there wasn't an over abundance of frog fair they did have...
FROG LEGS!! Yes for a small price one could buy a pair of frog legs and feast on the delicacy. So of course we bought a couple of pairs. I couldn't believe it when we got them...as you can see they look exactly like frog legs. There is no imagining that these suckers are anything but the back end of some hopper. For the sake of posterity and this blog I had to take pictures so I couldn't be the first one to try a bite (poor me), that lucky task fell on Mycal...

hmmm....crunchy....and....

not quite sure what that after taste is....

And there you have it - Mycal's reaction to frog legs...the same face he saves for Oreos.
Liberty on the other hand didn't have a problem with them at all. Where Emmuska's response on seeing the plate was "I don't want any chicken!" Liberty was all too ready to eat them - we had to hold her back for a second so she didn't get burned. All kidding aside they actually weren't too bad. In part that would be thanks to the way they were cooked because they can (from what we were told) be very oily but ours were definitely not that. The way they were described to us and the best way to describe them is that they taste like fish with the consistency of chicken. It's pretty close though it would have to be a mild fish and not exactly like chicken. Still close enough that now when people ask I can say 'Oh it's just like frog...)

After the Frog Festival we headed over the school carnival. This was a lot more fun for the girls. They had maybe thirty little booths where for a ticket or two one could play a game, get a snack or buy some other activity like getting their nails painted or getting a 'tattoo'. The games were great for Emmuska and Liberty had fun trying her hand at each one. Emmuska was so excited because if you did well enough with the game you earned a ticket. At just about each booth if she didn't do quite well enough on her own they would give her an extra chance or kind of help her along with the game so she ended up earning quite a few tickets. Each time she earned one she would carefully put it in her pocket. When we were all done playing she told us that she wanted to see what she could buy with the tickets she had done a good job earning. She was so serious about the whole procedure counting out her tickets and picking out exactly what she wanted. When she got home she carefully put all the 'treasures' she had earned in a bag to look at, making sure they were safe from puppy and little sister a like. She is so funny in that you never know what she will decide to value - and then the measures she will take to ensure those items safety.