July Highlights

GILROY GARLIC FESTIVAL

We finally went to the famous Gilroy Garlic Festival in July.

It was loaded with garlicky food, music, beer, crafts, even an Xtreme Sports expo and a karaoke tent.

Because of the intense heat and lack of shade, it became a day of cold indulgences.

Here is Attie having a frozen lemonade.

We stood in line for quite a while to try the garlic ice cream.

It was pretty tasty. We got garlic-hazelnut, I think.

Once we had had all the food and treats we could handle we headed over to the cooking tent and Guy Fieri from TV Food Network's "Drive-Ins, Diners and Dives" was just finishing his demo. Attie recognized him from TV so of course we had to get a picture.

Before heading out, Terry got Attie a little kettle corn :)

After the festival, we went to Gilroy Gardens.

It's a horticultural theme park nearby.

They timed a "Family fun Night" to coincide with the Garlic Festival.

So we set up our tent with about 50 other families.

They provided dinner and then we got to go into the theme park after hours and check out all the rides.

Here are Attie and Terry pretending to ride the cobra.

We actually convinced her to ride it the next day and she had a mixture of fun and fear, exactly what a roller coaster is all about!

We were so proud of her for trying it!

Another first for her was having her picture taken with "Garlic Boy" or whatever he is called. She's typically not into characters, but for some reason she was not intimidated by the walking head of garlic?

After a hot and sweaty day walking around the festival, sleeping in a tent and then theme parking the following day, we were certainly ready to get home to our shower and beds.