A Fiddletastic Weekend

Well, the weekend's festivities (and Martin's extra days off) are over and it's back to our regularly scheduled programming for the next three days, before the 4th and all its festivities. Actually, we're planning to stay home and do nothing on Independence Day, mostly because we don't want Anja and Karenin to die from Fear of Fireworks.

Anja was such a trooper this weekend!! We headed out on Friday night after the thunderstorms passed, and we were there in time to see the first concert rung in. They started late because of the storms, so we didn't stay the whole night, we left a little before 11:00, but the evening was really fun. Soggy, but fun. All our families were there, along with Doug & Tara. Sarah, TusaRebecca and I all bought silk dresses from the Amused booth and were very excited about them! Unfortunately, I ended up returning mine because it turned out to be a little bit big when I wasn't wearing clothes underneath it. I exchanged it for a cute brown shirt though, and I'm happy with my exchange, even though the dress was sooooo pretty and I wanted to wear it to Tim's wedding next weekend. Oh well. It was so cool on Sunday night that I was able to wear my shirt all evening, AND the next morning as well because it was still pretty cool! Hasn't the weather been BEAUTIFUL these past few days?? Today's forecast is calling for "abundant sunshine." Aaah, nothing better than that except all-day rain.

On Saturday we stayed home from the workshops and Open Mic in an effort to get Anja to nap a little bit. That didn't work out so well, so we went on out for the afternoon shows and I was hoping she would fall asleep sometime then too. WRONG!! This little girl barely napped all weekend long! But the best part was, she didn't seem to even need it. She was sooooooo happy to be out there. She loved it. She got fussy each night around 10:30 when it was finally dark, and other than that she was thrilled to death to be there.

The bands were great, as always. We saw lots of friends and I played Open Stage on Sunday. The only part that makes me sad is that we missed the Gospel Sing AGAIN. Every year I want to go to it, and every year I end up missing it for one reason or another. I've never been there for it in all these years!

On Sunday after everything ended, Martin stayed out there to help take down the stage and I went back to get him a little later. That's when I changed my clothes and tried to put Anja down at a relatively reasonable time, but she wasn't digging that, so we went out for coffee with Matt Aiken. We walked over to the Levee Starbucks and it was SUCH a nice night for a walk. Anja didn't sleep well that night.

Then yesterday Martin was using another vacation day. He went back out to Battleground in the morning to continue helping with the cleanup. He left us at home because Anja was still asleep, but when she woke up he came back to get us! I'm glad he did--the cleanup ended up being a most-of-the-day thing, and Anja and I had a good time walking around the battlfield and looking at the little Methodist cemetery. Then for lunch the group all went to TC's, and Martin wasn't lying--it's delicious! Greasy goodness. YUM. Their french fries are incredible. Like CC french fries, only BETTER!

When he was finally finished cleaning up out there we took a walk over to Vienna, which was a nice wind-down from the weekend as well as the first time we'd had to ourselves all weekend! We never got any time away from people, which is fine--we had loads of fun--but it was nice to just be our little family again for awhile. We even took Karenin. We sat on the Vienna patio for awhile and had our coffee and relaxed until it was about dinnertime and we went home.

I made a pretty good dinner too, and made enough to feed five armies.

I'm hesitant to admit this, but I'm actually getting used to Daylight Saving Time. It's not that I ever know what time it is or anything, but I'm starting to appreciate the extra time after dinner that we have to hang out while it's still light out. Last night we took a walk up to Hidden 8th Street and on the way home we stopped by the Presti's house. We let Karenin and Farley run around in the backyard while we sat on the patio and visited with Mrs. Presti. She loves Anja! And Anja gets such a kick out of the whole social scene. She invited us back anytime this week to pick cherries from her tree. We're thinking Wednesday would be a good day to do that, and I told her if I do, I'll make her a cherry pie. We headed home from there and stopped by a house where the lady has recently died (we think) and it's been gutted and is for sale. She was big into flowers and now the driveway is full of clay flowerpots and trash. We dug out some of the flower pots and took them home with us.

And then something beautiful happened. Anja went to sleep on the first try, and slept really well all night!! She probably only woke up three times!! That sounds like a lot, but trust me, it's NOTHING compared to the past few weeks. She must be so exhausted from the weekend. She woke up super happy this morning and after Martin left for work she and I walked down to the Farmers Market. I got a few things including a small pile of peaches and I'm going to make a peach pie today. I just made the crust and it's chilling in the fridge. She went down for a nap at 9:00 and is still sleeping! What a tired baby!

So it was a great weekend. Yardwork didn't get done though and it NEEDS to be done, so tonight we are skipping both Dulcimers and Knitting in order to get our yard cleaned up.

My garden is really producing. My tomatoes are all getting quite plump. I don't think it'll be too long before I'm picking cherry tomatoes for dinner every night! I'm telling you, planting those herbs was one of the best things. It's so nice to make dinner and realize I've got the fresh herbs for it in my backyard! Next year I'd like to add chives and parsley.

Time to continue on with my day!