Strawberry Festival with Sabrina and fam


A few weeks ago we went to the annual Strawberry Festival with Sabrina and her family! The Strawberry Festival is the big annual event in Fort Mill, which is the next town over from us, and celebrates all things strawberry. Since we are planning a Disney World trip this December, we figured this would be a great way to get Felix used to crowds and the sights and sounds of other people on rides.

Brad and I arrived right before 10AM. We parked in a lot within walking distance to the festival, and zipped on over there in our wheelchairs. We arrived right as the gates opened! Since Sabrina and Russ were running late, we explored the festival on our own for a while.

We saw lots of people wearing strawberry clothing, and stopped off first thing at the NAMI tent. We also got a picture of Felix and me going through bubbles. For these pictures, I am wearing a red dress with pink daisies and am in my power wheelchair. Felix is a sable and white Japanese Chin wearing a green vest.

We pulled over to a shady area and got some pictures of Brad in his fancy clothes! He was wearing a three piece white suit with a strawberry tie and lapel pin, red scarf, red shoes, and white fedora, and is in a power wheelchair.

We decided to explore the ride area next. I was worried about how Felix would accept all the screaming people on the rides, but he handled it like a champ! He didn’t care about the screaming or the wild rides at all. He was just chilling out the whole time. One of the rides even has spinning strawberries just for the strawberry festival! Brad had a good time adjusting the settings on his camera to produce motion blur in the rides that were happening behind and next to us.

Finally Sabrina and Russ arrived after a very harrowing ride in the bus from the lot they parked in! Sabrina needed a rest, so Russ and I headed off to find food while Sabrina and Brad hung out. One of the best things about the strawberry festival is that every food vendor must have at least one strawberry-themed menu item! I got strawberry-banana pudding. Felix did really well as we headed over to the food area, which was right next to the big stage. With Felix’s help, I didn’t bolt due to the loud music on the stage, too! So it was a win-win for us!

Next it was time to brave the crowds. By now it was about noon, and the crowds were thick! We started off by doing a little shopping (well, Sabrina shopped!) while Brad did a photo series of Russ! Sabrina is wearing a blue dress and is using a power wheelchair. Indy is a Golden Retriever wearing a blue harness. Russ is wearing a red and white Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses.

We found the NAMI tent again after not too long and stopped to talk with Kati and the other people volunteering there.

It was super crowded, and we tried to make our way down the main shady area to see the booths, but it was so difficult! The moms with strollers were relentless in pushing our wheelchairs out of the way by practically running right into us! At one point Sabrina’s chair fell off the path and Russ had to lift it to get it back on. So we gave up and started touring the sunny booths with more space between them.

It was very sunny, so Sabrina got us some parasols! Sabrina’s was red, and mine was lime green. The parasols were so helpful in keeping the sun from being so intense, and they made for some great pictures, too! By this time it was getting pretty hot, so I put Alice’s cooling vest on Felix. He had a growth spurt since then and doesn’t fit into it anymore a few weeks later LOL! It is rainbow colored.

We decided to see how Indy would handle being near the rides, so we headed back over to the ride area to see the strawberry ride, the ferris wheel, and the sizzler. We also found Sabrina’s daughter Faith, her service dog in training Brida, and her boyfriend Blaze. We all watched rides for a while, then found a shady area to hang out and give the dogs some water.

We didn’t stay too much longer after that. We split up from Faith and Blaze, and headed over to the food area to get some french fries. We had a fun time eating them in the shade and talking! But after having been at the fair for about 4–5 hours, we were super tired and so we parted ways and headed home. Not before stopping to buy some local fresh strawberries, though!

When we got home, I was eager to check on the girls. I knew we’d be gone a long time, so we left them in the bathroom with a potty pad in case they needed to pee. We thought they couldn’t reach anything in the bathroom, but it turns out we were wrong! They were able to clear a shelf of items and get towels off of racks!

One of the things Hestia got down was my hairbrush and she must’ve jumped on it and made a small hole in her paw. Which she then proceeded to run all around the bathroom with and smeared blood everywhere! It looked like there had been a minor bloodbath in the bathroom when we got home! Luckily by then the bleeding had stopped and she was in no pain whatsoever. But it certainly was not fun to come home and have to spend 30 minutes scrubbing the bathroom floors, tub, and door! They didn’t destroy anything, well unless if you count dirtying a bunch of Q-tips!

Next time we want to leave them in the bathroom, that storage area with the accessible shelf will be removed from the bathroom, and the towels will be folded up higher so that they aren’t gotten down, too!

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