Weekend Fun

This weekend was jam-packed and I loved every minute of it. Usually our weekends are lot more relaxing and not as exciting. But, we turned it up this weekend and the next few weekends will be almost the same. SO, to start out our madness we went downtown on Friday night for an Olympic party and concert. Since Colorado Springs is the home to the Olympic training center they have an opening celebration of their own. It started off with the torch leading the training center at 3:30 and was taken downtown with festivities starting after that around 4:30. They shut down some of Tejon Street and at one end was the stage for the Rodney Atkins concert and the other end had a huge TV screen that played the actual Olympic opening ceremony. In between were a few activities. They had a synthetic ice rink where some demonstrations were held, a tennis court with trainers helping out whomever wanted to try, and some ramps where they had bikers doing tricks. It was pretty neat. 

We headed downtown right after Brian got home from work and got a bite to eat a restaurant down the street from the festivities with ice cream for dessert. :) We then walked around and picked our spot for the concert. We set up shop and Jackson played and jumped around until the music started. Right next to us was a Tae Kwon Do demonstration and Jackson loved watching it. He did his own moves after it was over and it was very entertaining. At about 7:30 the opening act came on and it was Andy Gibson. He is a songwriter for big names like Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson. I enjoyed his music. After he was done they brought onstage some local fire fighters to thank them for all their hard work with the Waldo Canyon Fire. Donations were being taken to help out the fire fighting community through out the night. After that little presentation Rodney Atkins came on. He was really good and Brian, the kids, and I really enjoyed it. Both kids stayed awake the whole time and were SO good. At one point I was dancing with Ella in my arms and this girl walked up to me and said, "I notice you have a young baby and my friends and I were wondering what you did to lose all the weight so fast?" I was a little surprised that someone would just come up to me and ask but I have to say it felt good because I worked my butt off at home to fit in the post natal boot camp DVD workout. So that really made my night, ha! Here are a few candids from our night. I finally caught Ella's bunny nose scrunching on camera!

 Now on to our Saturday. Brian had read about this Renaissance Festival in Parenting magazine and it got great reviews. It was said to be a great thing to do with the family so we looked it up and decided to do it. It goes on every weekend during the month of July in a LITTLE town called Larkspur which is about 30 minutes from us. So after the kids had their morning naps we packed up the car and drove out there. I have never been to anything like this. It was so fun and entertaining. It was its own little world with shops selling costumes, wooden swords, and bow and arrows to yummy food and beer. There were rides for the kids and shows to entertain everyone of all ages. The rides were all man powered just like they would of been back in those times. Jackson rode this one ship swing ride and there were 3 guys in the middle pushing the spindle of sort to get the ride to turn. Jackson loved it. Right next to that ride was mother goose where you could sit and hold a real goose. It was too cute. Jackson wanted to hold her until we sat right next to her. He wouldn't even pet her so I did. Then we went to watch a Jousting tournament. It was so fun with all the costumes and acting. After that we were pretty hot so we bought some Italian Ice that they had frozen on top of orange peels which I thought was pretty innovative. After Brian ate it he looked like he was wearing lipstick and Jackson looked like someone had given him a bloody nose. We then continued to walk around and play some more games. Brian did the knife throwing and Jackson catapulted some frogs. Next we got some turkey legs, mmmmm! I love me some turkey legs. My favorite are from Frontier land at Disney World but these were good too. The last thing we did before we left was watching the Washing Well Sisters act. They were crude and funny! Brian's battalion commander and Sgt. Major were there and the Sgt. Major got pulled up on stage. It was a lot fun to watch all the crazy antics and a great way to end our experience at the festival. Since we did so much on Friday and Saturday, we spent our Sunday a little more relaxing with watching the Olympics and going grocery shopping. I would have to say that this past weekend was probably one of my favorites. Next weekend we have the Manitou Springs Beer Festival so that should be interesting!! Now I need to get some house cleaning and baby food making done.