We had been meeting with the community services district pretty regularly to see how we could do our part in helping our new community grow and one of their ideas was a kite festival. Well, needless to say we jumped all over it. There is a huge wind farm with hundreds of windmills that act as a constant reminder of how windy it is here and how going green is important.
We figured a kite festival would be a great way to get families out and meeting each other as well as raising awareness about green energy. Getting others involved in preserving and caring for our planet is greatly important to us. We even asked Modesto Irrigation to have a booth at our festival to educate people on how to conserve energy.
There wasn't an official head count but we estimate there were probably around 700 people at the event, roughly 10% of the town's population. Not bad for the first time! We are so happy with the results that we are even thinking of making it a semi-annual event, which we still have to get cleared with the community services district of course.
We are looking to move the festival from the park we had it at to the new sports park that should be completed in a few months for the next event. My wife and I had a blast! My parents came to visit with their dog from San Jose, two of my sister in laws ran a sno-cone and nacho booth and were so busy they ran out of ice and nachos! It was amazing!
There was a clown making balloon animals, a D.J. spinning records of all types of music (lots of it was for the kids), plenty of food vendors, a gymnastics area for the kids, a crafts table where the kids could decorate their kites and make windmills, and a booth to buy hi-tech kites that can do custom tricks.
Every vendor there agreed that they would like to participate in the next event. We even had some gigantic 45 foot long kites in the shape of an octopus, a giant blue bear, and parasail type kites that actually pulled carts with drivers in them! The big kites could even be seen from highway 205!
I met Jerry Cardinal at our festival who actually makes his own kites by hand. He had a few with him that he'd made and they were amazing. One kite alone took him 800 hours to complete and had a hand sewn tiger on it. It was truly breathtaking.
The highlight of the day was when we had all of the children who had decorated their kites at the craft tables get together for a contest to see who had the most creatively decorated kite. There were several groups, based on age, and 1st, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons given in each group to the winners. There were some really creative entries and the kids really took the contest seriously! I can't wait until next years festival!
We were very grateful for all of the support that our friends, family and community members gave us with the event. It really let us know just how lucky we are to live in such a great place and be associated with so many caring people.
I hope you all enjoyed this month's letter. Give me call or drop me a line and let me know how things are going in your lives. I hope everything is well and encourage you all to make every day your masterpiece!
Sincerely,
Clay Edwards
Fireside Mortgage
2455 Naglee Rd. #319
Tracy, CA 95304
1-800-921-CLAY(2529)
Toll Free Phone & Fax
clay@clayedwards.com
