A Feast Recap

Well, the long looked-forward-to weekend is over. The closing words of Martin were, "A good time was had by all" and I think that sums it up. It had it's overwhelming points, but overall it was a darn good weekend.

This is Anja and me when we arrived on Saturday morning, MUCH later than we'd planned. Getting out of the house proved to be much more difficult than we had anticipated. But, we were there, and look at how cute my baby girl is!!! She's wearing a very bizarre leatherish poncho with fringe and a hat that I made for myself out of yarn I got from the Feast a few years ago. Unfortunately, it's the slightest bit too small for me. It looks cute on Anja though.

We actually spent most of the weekend walking the grounds either shopping, putting Anja to sleep, or messing with annoying stuff that comes up when one's car decides not to start while it's sitting in the middle of a field far from home.

We got some VERY cute things. For Anja we found the very perfect little mug and wooden spoon. She ate a lot of rabbit stew out of that mug this weekend and loved every bite. In the end, I purchased three bowls of rabbit stew over the weekend and I only got one bowl for myself. Anja ate literally the entire bowl the first two times I bought it. She's also been pooping carrots all weekend as a result! Haha!

Anyway, we also bought her an adorable doll that can [sort of] be seen in this picture:

Also, what would any photo stream be without a dragon face? Hahaha. We saw this little doll at the store where we bought her wooden spoon and she was pretty fond of it so we went back later and bought it for her. It's a really sweet little doll and she fell asleep with it while I carried her in her wrap in the afternoon and it was really cute.

Yeah, we really didn't work at all. In fact, I didn't do any stirring of the soap on Saturday and I barely talked to the people who stopped at the booth. I did a much better job of being a booth employee on Sunday.

On Saturday afternoon I went to the car with Anja and she enjoyed some quiet time there with her books. I intended to put her to sleep, but really all she wanted was to have some time away from everyone and she was so incredibly happy and then she ended up falling asleep in the wrap, which was awesome, since when Martin and I went back to the car after the Highland Games (more on that to come) it wouldn't start! Aaah!! John Mooney looked at it and thought it'd be the battery. It was. They replaced it the next morning and it started up and now is driving fine. Anyway, it did put a little extra stress on the end of the day, and it didn't help that around 5:30 when we were cleaning up the booth and getting ready to head home Anja had a major meltdown that lasted approximately four hours. It was a long night!

Amazingly enough, I woke up feeling more refreshed on Sunday than I had on Saturday morning. We made it out of the house by 7:00 and was out at the grounds by 7:30. It was much colder this morning than it had been the day before, and we thought we had forgotten Anja's accessories on the dining room table, so here she is wrapped up in my cape with me, wearing my muffin hat as a sad attempt to keep her head warm. A few minutes after Martin took this picture he found her poncho, wool cap and shoes, so everything worked out fine. I wrapped her for mass and kept her snuggly inside my cape and I think she was perfectly comfortable.

Okay, now here comes the part that I just can't leave out, as barfy as it is. I just HAVE to brag on my super hot hubby who took second place in the Highland Games both on Saturday and on Sunday. Go Martin! He's awesome. The Highland Games, for those unfamiliar, consist of throwing a big rock, a sack of straw (sack-o-kittens seems to be the running joke) a "hammer" which is more like a bowling ball on a chain-type thing, and a caber, which is essentially a small tree with all its limbs cut off. Okay, this might sound really stupid, but it is actually quite impressive. Especially the tree part. The guy who took first is Rob, the same guy who took first both days last year, and always wins by a longshot and is basically unbeatable. So I consider Martin's second place a very big accomplishment!!! I was super sad to miss Saturday's Highland Games because that's when I was spending time with Anja at the car and we didn't make it back in time to see any of it, but apparently during the straw bag toss (you stand backward and throw it back over your head) Martin's bag of straw went forward and he went back, flat on his back! He says he still has no idea how that happened, but I wish SO MUCH that I could have been there to see it. I really missed out! The second day he did it right, which is cool and all, but it's funnier to see someone fall down.

This is the caber toss. Or flip. Or whatever it's called. The rule is, it has to flip in the air once and the goal is to get it landing at twelve o'clock. About 5 out of 11 guys made this goal, so there was a tie breaker afterward. In the regular caper toss two other guys help you lift the caber to your shoulder, get you situated to throw, etc. In the toss-off you've got to do it all by yourself. I think only one person (Rob) did it, but Martin came close!

Okay, but the barfy part I just have to put in is that I was pleasantly (and I mean that, they were all really nice to Anja) situated between a couple of 15 or 16 year old girls on my right, and a couple of maybe 14 or 15 year old boys on my left. From the girls, the whole time Martin was out there, all I heard was how handsome he was. From the boys, after he was finished, all I heard was "dude, that guy's strong." The girls were so funny and it took all my self control not to lean over and tell them proudly that he was my husband. Of course, he came over at the end while they were still there, so they probably figured it out. And the proudest part of all was that none of these kids had those kinds of comments for the others--just for him! He was probably the youngest guy there though, or at least one of the youngest.

So anyway, now it's Sunday and the day finished out nicely with only a very short exhauastion-induced fit from Anja, who is now sleeping soundly. I'll probably make another post tomorrow, depending on how the day goes. I'm sure I left out a thousand fun details! This is kind of rushed because I'm eager to join Anja in her state of sleep.