Four-year old Arian Peel and his brother Brody, 3, were showing their agility on the inflatable Wrecking Ball in downtown Batavia Friday.
“They don’t want to go home,” their mother Maggie Peel said.
Batavia’s signature Windmill City Festival filled the Peg Pond Performing Arts Pavilion lawn area along the Riverfront at Houston Street and Island Avenue.
The three-day summer attraction brings out locals and people from surrounding towns looking to have a fun time together.
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Festival organizers brought back a bigger Fun Zone, a series of interactive inflatable activities, after getting positive reviews at its debut last summer.
Houston Street featured nine inflatable houses, including the Wrecking Ball, a 30-foot-wide multi-player game where one person stands on a center pedestal and takes aim at the others with a big inflatable ball. The last person standing wins, while the others tumble to a cushion bottom.
Other bounce houses included the quad bungee-power jump and a pirate ship with a slide.
The Batavia Park District decided to replace the carnival and penny games with something that would give kids a fuller experience.
Peel and her boys were two hours into their fun time. “This is only our second time at the festival,” she said.
Her family recently relocated from Glendale Heights to Batavia.
“My sons met some friends here through other kids their age that live in the neighborhood. We heard Batavia was a great community and my husband’s work is out this way. We have been super happy,” Peel said of her new hometown.
Members of the park district cheerleading camp joined the fun.
Some of the parents seemed to have as much fun watching their kids on the bounce houses.
“It’s a hot day, but the kids are having a great time together outside of school. They’ve enjoyed the free play,” Batavia resident Jamie Antonacci said.
Aurora resident Sandra Schuler and her son, Ian, 4, were taking a rest from the activity with pizza and a hot dog on a bench near the Riverwalk fountain.
“We try to catch all of the festivals in the area,” Schuler said. “We particularly like the bounce houses because it’s good exercise.”
Hundreds of couples came for the main stage entertainment featured over the weekend.
St. Charles resident Julie Dujardin was with a group of friends. “This is our first time at the festival. It’s beautiful here,” Dujardin said of the Batavia Riverwalk.
The park district’s golf challenge at the Depot Pond is a staple of the festival. The goal is to swing a golf ball onto a green floating in the river.
“I almost made a hole-in-one,” said Batavia resident Chris Ulizzi, accompanied with his 7-year old daughter, Giada.
“We’re mainly here to enjoy some daddy-daughter time,” the father said.
Batavia resident Wendy Graves was with friends Kristine Treygg of St. Charles and Kristina Korwin of Mt. Prospect. “We’re here for the music,” Graves said.
Lauren and Travis Hemming were relishing time with their 17-month-old son Sawyer.
“We can walk to the festival from our house, have fun and walk back home,” Lauren Hemming said.
Festival attendees flocked to the food court that featured local businesses.
Batavia-based Flatlanders Incredible Barbecue is known for their beef brisket and pulled pork cooked in a gargantuan smoker.
Buddies Bryan Whipple and Sean Trowbridge would invite friends and family over for leisurely cookouts that included “low and slow” smoked meats. As word got out about their “amazing BBQ” they decided to put their passion to work.
“We’re Batavia boys,” Whipple said of the new-found barbecue business.
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Whipple used to help is his late mother Donna prepare food at the Batavia Veterans of Foreign Wars banquet hall that she managed for years. Trowbridge for years helped his uncle with family pig roasts.
“We don’t have a bricks and mortar restaurant. We use a 20-foot-long cooker with two fire boxes that we bought in Kentucky. It can hold approximately 800 to 1,000 pounds of meat at a time.”
Whipple said they originally intended to enter regional barbecue contests.
“We got a call three years ago from the Batavia Chamber of Commerce looking for someone to do barbecue for the Windmill City Festival. We never did do any contests,” Whipple said.
