We went to the Watermelon Festival at Santa Anita Park recently and had so much fun. We had never attended before and found out about it on the news. It is $10 for adults and $5 for younger children and includes all you can eat watermelon. Proceeds go to charity. You also get one spin of the watermelon wheel per ticket. Every spin earns a prize. We won a watermelon to take home, three watermelon seed spitting attempts, a bottle of water and a raffle ticket. We found out that the Watermelon Festival had been happening long before we were born. Apparently, we were behind the times!
They had teenage boys wielding machetes chopping the ends off of watermelons and handing them off to adults who popped them into the watermelon slicing machine which spit out perfect slices of mouthwatering melon. Long lines of people formed at each slicing station but the lines moved quickly. I don’t think anyone left without their fill of watermelon. The Sugar Snaps were ecstatic about eating as much watermelon as they pleased and we entered the line several times.
Ryder came up with this unique solution when he was handed two slices of watermelon and he didn’t have a plate or napkin. This is not something that would have occurred to me, but I love that kids don’t worry about getting their shorts wet and covered in watermelon. They live in the moment.
For $5, you could buy a carved watermelon made by students at the local culinary academy. They took requests, though you are limited by what they are comfortable carving. My first suggestion of anything in a set of four that could represent the Sugar Snaps, such an outline of three boys and a girl or puppies or another animal had them stumped. Finally, they decided that they could do four ducks for us. For $5, having someone hand carve a design for you is a great deal. I only wish the Sugar Snaps had a birthday that coincided with the festival so we could buy a bunch of hand carved melons for decorations and do a watermelon theme! Our niece, baby Katherine, could do that some day if she liked the idea.
If you’ve been reading Capri + 3 for a while, you know I’m a sucker for community spirit. I could not resist asking the parents of these young teen girls if I could snap a photo of their awesome watermelon socks. I love their high tops too.
We let the Sugar Snaps pick one ride and they unanimously voted for the helicopters. Their giggles of glee were priceless.
They enjoyed meeting the Santa Anita horse and were excited each time they saw her pass by.
It was fun to see all of the incredible designs made by the culinary arts students. The more elaborate designs were entered into a contest. Some of these were not entered and were up for grabs at $5 a piece.
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