Questapalooza

Let me preface this post by saying "It was fun!" All that follows is going to make you believe otherwise, but at the end of the day we looked back and had had fun. My parent's church hosts a huge music festival every year over Labor Day weekend. They have lots of crafts, games, and activities for the kids to participate, and lots of food to keep the adults busy all day and concerts going on all afternoon. All. stinkin. hot. day. It was hot. I believe it was about 99 degrees with about 90% humidity. We were on asphalt. All. day. It was HOT! We decided(wisely) to leave Bennett home with babysitters and go on to the festival.

We were determined to have fun, despite the heat! The last time we came to the festival, Maura was three and she simply refused to have her hair painted. This year, she was all about it, but Tristan refused to allow it. Hmm. Must be a three year old thing! She was pumped about the purple dots in her hair.

Below: Tristan was pumped about all the inflatables just there for the climbing. Notice his face; he was beet red for the entire afternoon!

The kids loved the petting zoo and this little pool full of toys. I think they were trying to figure out how to climb in!

My girl is big stuff--she even consented to face paint! We are growing up! Sniff! Sniff!

After all the festivities of the afternoon, it was time to move on to my time of the evening. Third Day!! They have been one of my very favorite groups since I was in high school. I remember seeing them in concert several times while in high school. In other words, they've been around for a LONG time! Mac Powell and his band were AWESOME! Such a wonderful time of praise and a beautiful testimony. I was truly blessed by this concert.

My kids, on the other hand, not so much. We weren't terribly close to the stage, but the music was pretty loud. Neither of my kids liked it...at all. Here, I had these visions of my kids rocking out to my music along with me. Not so much. Maura started asking from the first note when we could go home. It had already been a very long, very hot afternoon and they were all cranky and tired...even Alex.

I did get Maura to perk up and dance with me, but I don't expect that she's going to be asking me to take her to any more concerts in the near future. Although Tristan didn't like the loud music either, he was pretty content to sit on our blanket and eat. And eat. He wanted some Kettle Corn, but I told him he had to eat his PB&J before he got any popcorn. When I turned around about a minute later, he was scarfing down the remainder of his sandwich and the rest of his drink. I remember thinking that he'd eaten that sandwich pretty quickly. Too quickly, it turns out!

Next thing I knew, Tristan was turning green and telling me that he was going to "frow up." Yep. Too quick. Brent grabbed him and ran back through the crowd, hoping to make it out before Tristan exploded. It was not meant to be. Brent ended up just rubbing his back as he unloaded his dinner right in front of some surprised concertgoers. I kept waiting for them to come back and had the sinking suspicion that all was not well. They eventually returned, covered in vomit, which Brent had gamely tried to clean up. I, thankfully, had a change of clothes for both of them. So, the day didn't go exactly as I'd envisioned it, but we did have fun as a family and we praised God as a family. I'd call that a successful day!