Another Flat Stanley Visit

Another Flat Stanley comes to Laurel for a visit…all the way from Tarpon Springs, Florida. My grandson Kaden sent Stanley to learn more about Laurel, Mississippi.

Stanley had a great time participating at the Crawfest Festival in Laurel. It’s a pretty big deal here. We have many teams participate in the competition to see who can make the best boiled Crawfish.

Look at this big bucket of Crawfish – these are still alive and waiting to be cooked.

Next Stanley got to walk around downtown Laurel for the En Plein Air event. Stanley learned that this event is all about painting outdoors. He walked around and got his picture taken with a few of the young painters who were participating in the event.

 He even got his picture taken with Adam Trest. He is an amazing artist that lives in Laurel and has been on the HGTV television show, HomeTown many times.

 Papa and I enjoyed showing Stanley around our little town and sharing some history and fun facts about Laurel. For those of you who might watch HGTV you might recognize our town Laurel, Mississippi because of the TV show called “HomeTown” with Ben and Erin Napier.

 Over the last 7-years the community of Laurel has been working to revitalize their downtown. There wasn’t much left downtown after Hurricane Katrina came through. So many homes and businesses were damaged, and life changed a lot.

However, the community has worked hard to revitalize the downtown businesses and the homes in the area. Ben and Erin work hard to bring new life into many of the old homes by renovating them so that new families can move in them.

New businesses have opened, and the downtown is now a beautiful and quaint little town with restaurants and stores to shop in. Tourism from the HGTV show has impacted the community and allowed us to continue to improve and grow our little community.

PS - Stanley hung out with me at the Be Amazing Paper Company which is my business downtown. Stanley got to learn all about printing, paper and books! I think he is a real fan of reading books now and writing letters!