Parade and Chili cook-off Festival

Tonight the YM and YW put together our wards first parade and chili cook-off festival.  Or should I say the leaders put together the festival with the assistance of some of the youth (wink, wink).    And since I am back in YW that means I get the privilege to join in said fun on a deeper level.  A more involved, complicated and fun level.  Our ward has never really done any type of a halloween or fall celebration so we thought this would be a perfect opportunity to test the waters and hopefully make it a tradition!

We were overwhelmed by the response from not only our ward members but also from the neighborhood (non-members and less active alike).  We had planned on maybe 150 people showing up but we easily doubled that tonight - which is good - but it also means that we ran out of food, oops!

We started with a parade through the neighborhood for the kiddos and ended at the stake bowery where there was soup/chili, bread and drinks.  After eating there were several different stations you could go to for games, roasting marshmallows, face painting, nail painting, and a dance off.  There were so many people I lost track of my kids and they were all hyped up come bed time - which to me means they had an amazing time.