The 2025 Strawberry Festival Rundown 

I look forward to the festival all year and have an expectation that it will be a wild, wonderful swirl of activity, music, and food. My family will all hang out together and make lasting memories. 

This year, the Strawberry Festival started for me when I left work early on Friday and headed into town. I thought I’d spend some time with my kids before the ice cream social, sampling treats and checking out music. But as soon as we parked, my older daughter got a text to meet her friends at the library. She took her sister with her, and off they went. 

I walked around hoping to find some neat booths, but the booths were only partially set up, and most were vacant. It was like a barren, post-apocalyptic Strawberry festival. All the booths had tarps over them, and a few had empty tables inside, but otherwise they looked like lonely spiders lining the street. 

I got bored of looking at abandoned tents and went to Thriftway for Kombucha. 

Eventually my husband Mike was able to part from his soul mate, our golden retriever Waffles, and meet me in town. We rounded up our younger kid, Opal, and stopped at the Henna booth. Opal got a beautiful fish on her arm. That night, she would sleep with her head resting on her arm and end up with a shadowy fish swimming up from her chin to her ear. Mike also got a henna tattoo on his hand, which he wanted to do Friday because he planned on bringing the dog Saturday, and knew the dog would never allow it. This should have been prophetic for us. Like,  if a dog can’t sit still for a ten minute henna tattoo, would he be able to handle a parade? 

Once we were bedazzled, we headed to the ice cream social. We expected this to be a highlight of the festival, where we would connect with other families. Opal would run around with friends and we’d chit-chat with parents and marvel at how much all our children had grown. However, the music was loud and we didn’t see anyone we knew, so after eating, we left and went to see the Teen Jam at Pandora’s. 

There we ran into a friend of  Opal’s. This friend features heavily in our experience of the festival, so I will henceforth refer to her as Pumpkin to protect her privacy. I extend no such courtesy to my daughters. 

Tickets for a free strawberry shortcake materialized, and kids traded them like Pokemon cards. Or cigarettes. I have no idea what kids trade these days. Somehow Opal and Pumpkin ended up with one each, and promptly got themselves sugared up. 

At this point they wanted me to take them for a walk. We passed up the Barbie Dream Hearse, which was parked majestically on the side of the road. We noted the fine details, such as how the silhouette of Barbie had devil horns. I asked if Barbie drives the hearse, or if she’s the corpse in the back of the hearse. Pumpkin considered for a bit then said, “I would probably kill a man to put him in there.” 

To this Opal responded, “You know what’s on my bucket list? To get spit on by a camel.” 

I brought them to Pop-Pop Bottle shop, where we got fries and soda. 

The children were now thrumming with sugar-energy, so I figured I’d ditch them with Pumpkin’s mom. But of course all the booths were now open and filled with colorful novelties. We stopped at one and Pumpkin bought a stuffie. I tried to talk her out of it, but my adult logic held no power against the allure of cuteness. 

The stuffie appeared to be a capybara wearing a detachable backpack in the shape of a turtle. Somehow Opal came to be in the possession of the turtle backpack. It is now her prized possession, and she brought it with her to camp. It’s just the right size to fit a Pokemon card. Or a couple cigarettes. 

When we arrived back at the Teen Jam, Opal’s henna started peeling, and Pumpkin pulled off a strand and put it toward her mouth, as if to eat it. I stopped her in time, but now I’m curious what henna tastes like. Maybe next year I’ll have the artist squeeze some right into my mouth as if it were an icing piper. 

We made our way home to get some sleep so we could be up bright and early to get good seats at the parade. 

This year we thought ahead. We arrived an hour and a half early, and we brought camping chairs. We found a good spot toward the start of the parade, where we assumed people would be most generous with the free candy. 

My husband brought the dog with us. We imagined he’d be one of those sweet golden retrievers who sits and calmly watches the parade. I don’t know where we got that idea from. He has never before shown a proclivity to calmness or even prolonged sitting. 

Since Waffles was energetic, Mike and I left the girls in the chairs and went for a walk. My job was to go to Thriftway and buy dog bags, because, despite having thought of absolutely everything we would need, we had neglected to bring dog bags. His job was to prevent the dog from pooping for the 5 minutes it took me to shop. 

When I came out of the store, Mike and Waffles were sitting at the benches. Mike was only wearing one sock. “This is what failure looks like,” he said. 

I sent him into Thriftway to wash his hands and buy new socks. 

We got back to our seats, and Waffles decided to relentlessly tug on his leash and barrel into every dog that crossed his path. When we watched the Zumba dance, he stood transfixed, his tail wagging and wapping the legs of everyone who passed by. 

We were relieved when Waffles finally calmed down a bit, until he started sniffing at the dresses in the booth next to us. Mike had to take him away from any merchandise that he might pee on. 

The girls and I watched the parade while Mike wrangled the dog. He didn’t get any pictures, so you’ll have to make do with the ones I got. 

We had every manner of animal, from ponies to live bees, to a paper mâché octopus someone wore on their head. 

The world’s most beautiful cow was there. She looked thinner than she did last year, and her udders were quite full. I wonder if she’s nursing a calf, and it’s taking a toll on her. If so, I definitely can identify with this animal. If not, I’m disappointed in her not being the iconic festival cow of my memory. 

The Pony Club also made an appearance, and they had beautiful ponies with strawberries braided into their manes. The joy of having animals in a parade is the thrill of wondering if they’ll poop, and, when one inevitably does, if someone will clean it up, or if it will just get run over by tractors until it merges with the pavement. Maybe the kids in the pony club carry extra socks with them just in case. 

Many of the floats tossed candy into the crowd. The kids went bananas grabbing it out of the air or off the street. The excitement of free candy falling like manna from heaven was tempered, however, when the children discovered it was mostly Werther’s hard candy, which tastes like disappointment. 

When an unmarked van drove by, the kid next to us yelled, “Hey you in the creepy white van! Do you have candy for me?” 

The Thriftway Drill Team wasn’t in the parade this year, but I was happy to see my new favorite group, the Maury Island Incident. Everyone, no matter how rational, has one totally crazy thing they believe. For me, it’s that the Maury Island Incident really did happen. There really were aliens and they really flew over Vashon.

After the parade, I made my way to the vashon-maury.com booth. Not to brag, but our booth had the sexiest table covers of any booth. They were stretchy and soft, like nylons.

As soon as I entered the booth, there was this adorable dog that I pet and snuggled and riled up, until I realized she was wearing a service dog vest. So my first in-person introduction to my colleagues was, “Hi, I’m Anna, I just untrained your dog.” 

At the booth we were selling stickers and magnets. I say “we”, but I couldn’t sell water in a desert. So my colleagues were selling stickers while I was petting people’s dogs. 

I did manage to answer a few questions. People would ask things like, “Can I put this sticker on my car? Can I put it on someone else’s car? Does the Bike in the Tree have wheels again? Where’s the Granny’s Attic booth?” 

One customer wore a costume consisting of a dog head and a bright green utility vest. I guess his fursona is a service dog. I sold him a sticker, and probably untrained him. 

I had brought Opal to the booth, and we put her to work handing out free pens. I kept a free pen for myself, which, as soon as we got home, Opal took from me and packed in her camp duffel bag.  

Once she got bored of handing out pens, we went to the big bouncy jumpy thing. I’m sure there’s a name for it, but I don’t know what it is. Basically, they strap you into a harness and hook the harness up to bungee cords via carabiners. Then you jump on a trampoline and go 15 feet in the air. There’s something about seeing your child floating high above you, caught in the stillness between rising and falling, her arms raised, her hair splayed out like a sunburst, in a moment of freedom where no forces are acting on her. 

When she came down, she wobbled a bit. We were next to the ride where you go inside a giant plastic ball that floats on water. We watched as a carny had a kid step into a wad of plastic, then shoved a leaf blower into it to inflate it. He then rolled the kid onto the water, where they bobbed around and bounced off other balls. 

Opal considered trying it, but decided it would probably be nauseating. “It would check being in a big hamster ball off my bucket list, though,” she said. 

Her bucket list would just have to wait, because we had more boothing to do.The great thing about a booth is you can watch the crowds go by and talk to people without being jostled around or standing in the sun. We were stationed right next to the plane noise booth. To clarify, this is a booth staffed by community members who are opposed to the amount of plane noise over the island. They were not making plane noises. That would have been super annoying. They, like me, are people who value peace and quiet. I once said to my family, “My name is DJ Silence and I’m here to turn off the jam” before unplugging the TV. So I felt we were in good company with these eccentrics activists. 

This year the plane noise group went all out with the tech. They had a monitor that displayed flights. I love the plane noise people because they are so deeply passionate and informed and engaged about an issue that is completely beyond me. Also there’s a certain symbolism to the futility of trying to change the sky. I applaud their perseverance. 

As the day wore on, we got tired, and my older daughter, Iduna, turned up at the booth, having had strawberry lemonade for lunch. I figured I should feed the children something real, and maybe even take a nap. 

We decided we’d go home. I realized in the car that my face had gotten sunburned. “Pumpkin eats her sunburn,” Opal said. 

As soon as we got home, Mike had finished his nap and gotten the dog to calm down. So we set the kids up in front of the TV and Mike and I went into town together. We wandered around, trying to figure out which food we wanted. We ended up getting a tub of hummus and some fried pita chips then eating them on the village green. 

The seller said it was a weird flavor, containing corn, chives, lemon, and hummus that she’d somehow mixed together in a happy accident, as if Bob Ross had put ingredients in a blender. 

I had a beer and ate the whole tub. 

I couldn’t remember what we talked about on our date. When I later asked Mike, he just said, “I’m not a pod person or a replicant.” I’m not sure if this is a summary of our conversation, or just a fact he wanted to remind me of. He later clarified that he meant that he didn’t remember either.  

After the festival, I checked Facebook to see how other people had experienced it, because I can no longer form my own opinions, and I allow my understanding of reality to be dictated by other people’s social media posts. 

Someone had posted this: 

They included two pictures from the previous decade, one of young kids riding in some sort of cart that is maybe a bumper car. They are not wearing seatbelts. Behind them is a purple and green contraption that’s presumably a ride. No one is on it or near it. A few people in the background of the picture are  hanging around, looking bored. The second picture is a bunch of people standing in front of a booth where music is playing. The only way you would know this picture isn’t from this year’s festival is that the musicians aren’t on stage, and the color palette of the photo is sepia, which always implies the nostalgic past. 

People chimed in to say,  “Died a long time ago”

Anonymous member 194 said,  “Goddamn liberals ruined all the fun.” 

Anonymous member 836 said, “its  (sic) also ran (sic)  by people who aren’t even from here.”

People fact check that it was in fact organized by multiple islanders. 

People lament the absence of rides, but others note how those were super unsafe. Anonymous member 706 said,  “For starters, there were teenagers setting up their rides so that’s why there’s no rides anymore because they weren’t even safe”

Another islander clarified, “yeah I mean there were literally children in my grade. I was probably like 16 setting up the rides that go up in the air…”

To this someone responded, “Gotta live on the edge sometimes.”

Living on the edge is trying a new flavor of Kombucha. It’s not putting your life in the hands of a teenager who will pull a lever that turns you upside down, then promptly get distracted by a notification on their phone. 

Someone said, “I miss the Lizard Wizard booth.”  I don’t know what this is, but I miss it too.

One islander said, ”I made sure my kid knew it sucked no matter how much fun he had.”

Someone held up a mirror to the group, reminding us that if we want our community events  to be better, then WE  have to make them better. They said, “It’s time to elevate the general vibe on the island. In the few years I was gone a lot has changed and many people have complained to me about it. It’s up to us to bring it back to a higher vibration. We ARE the community here. When most of what’s on the pages are ads and complaints and we aren’t celebrating each other then it is a slow death.”

Damn, not only did they point out that the word vibes comes from the word vibration, they also showed us the light. We need to be positive and celebrate what’s good, not dwell on what’s bad. Stop expecting the moon and the stars and rides that will make you puke out the milkshake you just ate. Appreciate what we have, and, if that’s not good enough, then join the volunteers who plan the festival. 

The festival may not have lived up to everyone’s expectations, but I had fun, and, as a bonus,  I didn’t get spit on by a camel.