Busy weekend!

Not homeschooling busy, but busy nonetheless.

I had a Mom's Breastaurant event in Santa Rosa - the Harmony Music Festival - on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. At the same event last year, Mark suggested that rather than getting a hotel room and him trying to find things to do with the kids up there, I drive back and forth each day and he would keep the kids at home. So that's what we did. Friday they came with me (it was a short festival day and Mark was working), and they stayed home with him over the weekend while I drove up and back. This year that was not an option, as Mark is out of town. Hmmm, what to do, what to do ...

I arranged with my friend Marjorie in Oakland for my kiddos to have two very long play dates at their house. Marjorie was excited to have them, her kids were excited to play with them, my kids were ecstatic, and I got to go to work.

Friday the kids came up to Santa Rosa with me again. Festival-wise, it was a shorter day, but really it was about as long as every other day because I still had to get registered and set up the booth and get the van parked. When we got there the let me into the festival grounds to set up, but there was no one at the Kids Village area to direct me to the proper spot. But, as all vehicles have to be removed from the grounds by 1 PM and we'd been waiting for direction and it was around 11:30, I talked with a couple of the other exhibitors and they were fine with me unloading my gear into a big pile next to their booth and keeping an eye on it while I went to park the car and deal with registration. The kids had been busy making friends with Dr. Solar, a magician act, and with several of the vendors, while I unloaded the gear. After we'd gotten registered and parked the van, we returned to the Kid Village, and they played with the vendors and the other kids while I got the booth set up (because now, finally, there was someone there to designate a space for us).

While the kids were busy charming *every*one, I set up and realized that I'd forgotten the WALLS for the tent! I've given up on the 'bag' that the tent came with, as the zipper is broken, it's got lots of rips and tears, and the walls don't realllllly fit into the pouch in which they're supposed to be stored. So, minus that bag, when we'd unloaded the van after the last event, the walls went into the truck bed, but everything else went into the garage corner dedicated to MB stuff. And so, when I packed for this event, I packed everything in the corner, and not the walls. Aargh!

I managed to borrow two walls from a vendor who didn't use them during the day, but she needed them back at night. I would never have believed it, but two walls worked okay. And, as I also needed to keep my eyes on the kids as they played in the Kid Village field near the booth, having two sides of the tent that I could see through (because of no walls), was actually handy.

Whew! So, MB did okay that day. It was a slow day, but Fridays always are, and that's why I was okay with bringing the kids along. Saturday and Sunday are much crazier, and trying to keep up with them and the booth would not be possible. But Friday was good.

And over the course of the day, Sayer became the darling of Kids Village. She played with everybody. She got her face painted. She played with the magician's birds. She was on stage with one of the musical acts, first singing with them, then shaking a big maraca. She tried on a fantastic (and veeeery expensive) pair of fairy wings. She was almost on stage with Dr. Solar for the magic show, but I think he'd seen that she got lots of attention in the musical act, so he gave someone else a turn. One of the booths had sent a photographer to get lots of pictures from Kid Village, and I watched as she took shot after shot of Sayer. Maybe it helped a bit that Sayer's hair is aqua-blue, so she stands out (which is WHY her hair is colored) :) We exchanged cards, and I'm hoping to get my hands on some of them. Sayer had a BLAST.

Duncan had fun, too, but he was much more closely attached to me. He decided it was too hot to sit in the patchy shade watching Dr. Solar's act, so he came back to sit with me in the booth. He got tired of chasing the ball with Sayer and the other kids, and came to sit with me. He'd go draw on the art wall for a bit, then come sit with me. He also tried on a pair of fairy wings and looked way cute.

At the end of the day I returned the walls to the other vendor, pulled all the MB furniture to the center of the booth and dropped the roof down. Then I got the kids and the items that don't stay the night on location and we trudged through the festival and up the hill to the parking lot, and I hoped that the stuff I left behind would still be there in the morning.

Saturday I dropped the kids off with Marjorie, chatted for a bit, then drove up to Santa Rosa. I'd brought the walls with me that day - yay! And everything in the booth was just where I'd left it - double yay! So I started pulling everything back into place, raising the roof, and hanging the walls. Before I had everything in place (almost before I had ANYthing in place) I had two mothers come in to use the changing table and sit to nurse their babies - triple yay! It was a nice day for MB.

And when I picked the kids up that night, they'd had a marvelous day, too. They'd had loads of fun with Marjorie and her kids, and were very excited to go back again the next day. They asked for a snack/dessert for the drive home, but Sayer fell asleep before she could eat hers. Duncan followed suit a bit later, his dessert safely eaten. I had to stop for gas when I was about 11 miles from home because I had only 5 miles left on the tank. I got one gallon because it would get me home, and then to Costco the next morning.

It did, barely. I had 7 miles left in the tank when I got to Costco and put an obscenely large amount of gas into the van. Then we were up in Oakland dropping the kids off again, and on to Harmony. It was a slightly warmer, slightly slower day. It went on and on and on. In the evening, because Kids Village closes up earlier than the rest of the fair, I was packing things down and hauling them out through the thronging crowds of festival-goers. A lovely woman had volunteered to keep her eye on the booth while I was trekking back and forth, and then she offered to carry on her scooter the three 25-pound weights I use to hold the tent down. Wow, was that helpful! The van was parked at the top of a small hill about 300 yards away. I made 4 trips with gear on my folding dolly, then we loaded her scooter up with the weights and I carried the collapsed tent and off we went. Everything was loaded up around 7:45 and I was on my way. An hour later I was in Marjorie's house watching the end of a Backyardigans episode with the kids.

Sayer had done some reading with Marjorie's daughter that day, so something approaching homeschooling had gotten done :) Of course, they also went to two birthday parties in the park that day ... :)

Both kiddos fell asleep on the way home again. And when we finally did get home and get inside, I was not far behind them.

Busy, busy weekend. And today and tomorrow will be busy days, too. Now we're catching up on laundry and home work and chores from the weekend, and also trying to pack and shop and prepare for a long trip to Oregon for another MB event, then and EM event, and then a drive to Quincy CA for another MB event at the High Sierra Music Festival over the 4th of July. It's time for me to get off the computer so the day can really get started, because there's a lot to do today. All right, here goes ...