Weekend Trip

For the past few months Damien has been wanting to get out of town for the weekend. All of our trips as a family are either to New Orleans to visit family or to vacation with family. Not that we don't love doing that, but it's nice to spend some time "vacationing" by ourselves. Damien had off of work on Monday so we left Saturday morning to head to Richmond, VA. We stayed outside of the city in a small town. We wanted to try to do a lot of relaxing, but as with most trips we stayed pretty busy. Orin was so excited to go. For some reason he LOVES staying in hotels (it might have something to do with being able to bring his Elmo suitcase). We hung out at the hotel Saturday afternoon and then decided to take Orin to play miniature golf for the first time. He really enjoyed it and found his own way of getting the ball into the hole by pushing it with the top club - we were really impressed! The one hole he completed from beginning to end he actually did in 5 strokes - well pushes. He didn't have complete focus throughout the entire course and eventually found the water more interesting. Micaiah enjoyed just sitting in the stroller holding a ball and club and watching the activity. On Saturday we went to the National Folk Festival. What great luck to be in Richmond the weekend it was there - more than 175,000 people attend the free festival that is in a different city each year. Over the past few years Damien has really developed a love of this type of music. When people think of "Folk" music they think of bluegrass with banjos and violins. And although there is that type of music, Folk music consists of much, much more. It is Blue's, Bluegrass, Zydeco (those of you in NOLA have probably heard lots of that), as well as Folk music from other countries (we heard African, Asian, and Native American Folk and much more. The festival was HUGE and there were 6 or 7 stages and tents with different performances throughout the day. There was also this incredible family area hosted by the Richmond Children's museum. There were multiple stations where the kids could do all sorts of crafts. Orin made a puppet, a hat from a brown bag, a fabric necklace, and a bean-bag. There was also a a family stage with great folk bands that played children's music. We saw a band called "The Company Store." They were hilarious and we all loved the music. On top of that some company donated some great harmonicas to be give to the children and Phil Wiggens (a famous harmonica player) gave them a lesson in playing. Orin sat in the stroller much of the rest of the day just playing it. We also saw a great Zydeco band and a pianist from New Orleans named Henry Butler we took the kids. We had a really nice time and the kids were well behaved and seemed to have a good time too. I think Orin's favorite part though was riding the bus to and from the remote parking area. Later that night swimming in the hotel pool and had a relaxing evening.

The first picture is moments before Orin ran into a pole and the second is moments after. Damien's first words were "You should have gotten that on tape!"

Video From Mini-Golf