Superheroes, comic books and Andrew learning the art millinery were the many fun activities we did at fall festivals.

On fall weekends in St. Louis I look for activities to do with the kid while the weather is decent and before the winter chill sets in. Luckily we live in a fairly large metro area so I can usually find a few festivals to checkout.

Super Fun at Comic-Con

Every year the St. Louis Public Library has a Comic book festival. Here you can do a craft, see people dressed up as superheroes and most of all check out comics.

Activities and vendors can be different from year to year. When he was a baby I took a photo of him with Chewbacca. That year they also had Stormtroopers and Darth Vader. This year they had Bane, the Batman villain that is all muscles and has his face partially covered, along with The Mask, from the 1990s Jim Carrey movie, and a princess. Andrew was not up for photos with these characters.

We walked around and checked the comics out and we even found a cool pin for a dollar. It was Spiderman done as Cardinal, which fits St. Louis.

You also could do virtual reality with a Star Wars theme, but Andrew wasn’t into waiting in line and putting on the gear.

Crafting on South Grand

David had told me that the South Grand area in St. Louis was having a Fall Festival so we headed over there. This was the best idea of the day. They had lot of craft booths for the kids.

He created a burlap hat at one. “This is all recycled,” she told us.

I liked this fact; it was nice that they had put all this stuff together from old burlap bags, pieces of cloth and ribbons from old t-shirts.

Andrew made a mask at another one using crayons and stickers on plain white paper. I even helped him color parts of it.

The last activity he did was creating a wand using a stick and some streamers and colored tape.

Ceviche Break

Surprisingly the festival did not have a lot of food vendors. I did buy a cup of ceviche, which is a cold dish of shrimp, avocados, tomatoes, and cucumbers in marinated lime juice, while Andrew was doing a craft. Ceviche is delicacy I don’t get to enjoy very much in the Midwest, it is something I love to have when I found it in the Southwest. It is great that there are some new restaurants on South Grand, such as Alta Calle, that have unique cuisines for the area.

Derrick and the Dinosaurs

We stopped by Child author Dan Killeen’s table. He wrote the book “Derrick and Dinosaurs” about a kid who loves dinosaurs and who saves St. Louis from an invasion of them. It is a cute book with lots of St. Louis references. He has written a few others and we picked up “Robert and the Robots” it will be fun to find out together where this adventure takes us!

Pizza Stop

I was still hungry even after the snack. Many restaurants along South Grand are Asian themed, but with a kid, I wanted a place that was fast. I remembered Pizza Head where you can buy pizza by the slice. They had a pepperoni one ready for Andrew and I bought two cheese slices to share with him. The restaurant has a variety of cold sodas to drink. They even have a nice beer selection on tap and in bottles.

In back, there is a Space Invaders game, which he noticed right away when we used the bathroom. I let him pretend to play for a bit. It will be more expensive when he figures out he is really not playing them.

The huge jukebox that included CDs that flipped fascinated him and he wanted to play that one. I explained to him it just does music. The jukebox was something he didn’t quite understand with electronics that should do a lot of different things.

After lunch, we went back to wandering the festival. Vendors were placed throughout the blocks and allowed for easy walking. Sometimes we go to these things and the paths are so narrow that you spend most of the time trying not to trip up other people. I wish more of them allowed for carefree maneuvering.

Last Note

Festivals really work well with a kid in the pre-school age if there are lots of craft tables or activities for them. He is really into drawing and making things now so going to this one made the day enjoyable for both us. I hope the next one is like this!