About a week ago Alex mentioned that Winchester — a city he works in occasionally — was a cute little town I might like. Within minutes of Googling the town I learned the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival was coming up so we immediately booked a long weekend away.

The festival boasts tons of parades, a several-block strip of carnival games and food, an arts and craft festival we unfortunately had to skip out on due to rainy weather, and tons more. Dakota especially loved the parades, squealing with delight for all the marching bands and waving to all the fire trucks (turns out the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival offers the largest fire truck festival in the country). With dada’s assistance, she won her first carnival prize — a yellow octopus that followed us around the rest of the weekend.