September 29, 2019 – For the last weekend in September it sure was a hot one. And humid. In the upper 80’s. This festival is an annual event in Downtown Staunton, Virginia and is so much fun! It’s really a Harry Potter festival but due to copyright issues it can’t be called that, hence the Queen City Mischief and Magic name. Muggles from all over come to celebrate the magic, take selfies with Voldemort, Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Filch and more! Attendees dress up as their favorite character, streets are blocked off, store fronts are redressed and all sorts of fun stuff awaits throughout these 11 blocks in the city! It really is a weekend of fun!

Of course Rowan isn’t old enough to have a clue what all this is about, but he loves to go and do just about anything so he was happy just walking down the streets doing simple things. It’s going to be that much more fun in the coming years when he really understands what this is all about.

Our little dude was so cute wearing his sunglasses and hat looking all around watching everything!

Our first stop was the balloon artist. He loved his little doggy balloon! I think Daddy was just as excited as Rowan was over his first icee! LOL Little Man loved his popcorn too and let’s not forget the baby dragons he could actually touch! So fun!

How awesome do those characters look? And all this is free! Amazing! There are little photo props set up all throughout the streets too. I’m sure we didn’t find them all and Rowan has no clue, but it’ll be fun to be able to show him these pics as he gets older. We couldn’t believe how still he was for his face painting! He only moved a couple of times and she easily corrected those little swipes. So cute!!

We ended up at one of our favorite spots for lunch before we went home, Byer’s Street Bistro. It was nice enough, with the breeze and in the shade, to sit outside on the patio and just enjoy the moment. The food here is always good and we were home by 1:00 for the Redskins game (they lost – again). But it was a fun morning and we’ll look forward to doing it annually! I don’t know how many years they’ve done the festival but this was our second year going. There are all kinds of activities for older kids so that will be something to look forward to as Rowan gets older.

I just love these pics outside of the restaurant after lunch.

Until next time …