We attended the 32nd Annual Fourth of July at Charlton Park this year with David’s family. Charlton Park is in Hastings, Michigan and has the cutest little village museum.  Historic buildings were moved onto the park property including a blacksmith shop, school house, town hall, barber shop, hardware store, and several others.

I was excited to see the print shop museum! {PS. The awesome shirt is from MichiganAwesome.org!}

Be still my heart:

We arrived in time for the old-timey contests. There were 3 age divisions for most of the games. Ben, Sam, and David all participated in the watermelon eating contest – no hands allowed!

David, Ben, and Mom entered the freckle contest. The Benedicts have a long history of winning the freckle contest. Lorraine took first place the past several years.

There was hay bale throwing:

And pie eating:

Ben was super proud of his two second place ribbons – for the freckle contest and pie eating:

Sam placed in the watermelon eating contest and hay bale throwing contest:

There was lots to do and see and eat! It was super family friendly and everything was free.

Later that evening we drove to Battle Creek to watch fireworks. Since Mom works at the base, we had great seats for the show.

We watched with Mom, Mary, and her fiancé Patrick:

The fireworks were from the Battle Creek Balloon Festival: