Saturday Perfection

Saturday was one of those perfect days that required no planning and little effort on our part. We just showed up and had a beautiful time.

9am: Farmers Market
10am: Biscuits and Gravy
11am: Clanjamfry Scottish Festival at the church around the corner
1-4pm: Ridiculously long naps
5-9pm: Free, live, awesome music at the Levitt Shell

Is that a perfect day, or what?

The festival was fun for all of us. We got to watch a border collie sheparding the, well, sheep. We got to watch some guys trying to throw poles and other heavy objects.

There were lots of bagpipers and traditional dancers. Here, the Wolf River Bagpipers file into Evergreen Pres.

Beautiful lass.

There were also some non-traditional dancers. Here we see Chris and Kate Bush performing the Memphis hula hoop jig.

Also impressive was the Stephen Bush "I can hula hoop and hold on to my nachos" move. The Bushes have twins AND were babysitting their niece all weekend. A little hula hooping was just what they needed.


Meredith got her face painted for the first time. It was a ladybug.

After naps, we went to the brand new Levitt Shell in Overton Park. The Shell has been there for decades, but a recent grant from the Levitt Foundation refurbished the Shell and made it a truly wonderful place. There will be about 50 shows there, every spring and fall, and they are all FREE. The Levitt Foundation is doing this all over the country with old performance shells; one is about to open in Arlington, TX. It really is an invaluable gift to communities. The crowd last night was incredibly diverse and everyone was having a pretty magical time. We saw Sara Hickman--from Houston--for the kids, and then Grupo Fantasma--from Austin--for everyone. MAN there are so many incredibly talented people from Texas...

We started the evening by filling up on lots of refined sugars. Bright yellow cupcakes (a neighbor brought about 40 -- got the whole crowd hopped up) and plenty of candy provided energy for a solid hour of running and rolling up and down the hill in front of the shell. I don't have a picture, but Meredith and her friend Holden also spent a considerable amount of time going up to complete strangers and calmly telling them they couldn't find their parents. This, despite the fact that I was following about 10 feet behind them the entire time. I had to soothe a lot of people until those kids switched to a new activity.

Grupo Fantasma.

To say that Walt and Meredith enjoyed the show would be an understatement. They were ecstatic. They insisted on being directly in front of the stage, and at a couple points, they considered joining the band ON stage. We're glad they're still quite short.