Rock N' Romp and Mid South Maze

We went to our first Romp N' Romp this afternoon - local bands give afternoon concerts for families with kids. You can't get in if you don't have a kid with you. It's cheap: kids are free, adults are $5, and then you get music, free food and free beer (kind of seems too good to be true, doesn't it?) It was fun.

The location of the Rock N Romp moves around to different venues. The location of today's concert was at the Mid South Maze - a big corn maze they set up recently for the fall. So after we got tired of the music we wandered over and went through the maze.

I'll admit these mazes freak me out. I was fairly certain we would never get out again. It took us about an hour, which is apparently about as long as it takes, so we did okay.

Stian thought it was pretty cool. He's been into mazes lately.

They do a haunted version of the maze. I'm really glad we weren't there for that!

Here's a picture of the maze from above: pic

And then when we got out of the maze of course Stian had to take a turn at the corn cannon. He thought that was pretty fun.

Mid South Fair

We took the kids to the Mid South Fair today. This time we made sure Silje got to ride on some rides too. Both kids had a lot of fun.

Drawing

Silje loves to draw and color. It's her new favorite thing to do. Give her some paper and some markers and she's a happy girl.

The Shell - videos 3

The Shell - videos 2

The Shell - videos 1

The Shell

One of the reasons we were particularly interested in this house is it's close proximity to Overton Park. We've already enjoyed that a great deal with the zoo being so close, and the park itself including playgrounds and trails through the woods, and big open grassy spaces, etc. One thing we were interested in in particular was Levitt Shell. The do free concerts four nights a week at Levitt Shell during the summer. Unfortunately we discovered when we moved that they stop for the hottest months of the year. I believe the last concert was the night before we moved in. Bummer. But they started up again this week! They run Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. The shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday don't start until 7:30, which is a little late for the kids. But the Sunday show starts at 6:00.

So yesterday we packed up a picnic dinner and headed over to the Shell. This was a big deal concert as the artist was Booker T. Jones. Booker T. was a house artist at Stax records and played on many, many famous songs that you would recognize. He also has performed under his own name. He is in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and has a Grammy for lifetime achievement. The place was packed - it will be interesting to see how packed the place is for lesser known artists. It was a like a huge neighborhood party though, it was fun. The kids enjoyed themselves. The warm up act was rap, which was not really Kris's or my speed, but the kids enjoyed it well enough. We quite enjoyed Booker T., even if we could only stay for 6 or so of his songs before we had to get the kids home to bed.

We'll be back though for other shows. It was so nice to just stroll over here, it's only a couple blocks from the house.

I have a few videos to upload as well, but right now trying to get the videos to load is crashing Blogger, so I'll keep trying, but in a different post so I don't drive myself totally insane.

Zoo

It was such a beautiful morning that we decided to head over to the zoo. The weather was lovely and it was fairly quiet. We had a very nice time. We are so lucky to live so close to this zoo.

Delta Fair

We took the kids to the Delta Fair on Saturday. I'm not sure what exactly it is - but it's like a county fair. Stian enjoyed it, he likes a good fair. Poor Silje really wanted to go on the rides too. Hopefully she'll be big enough next year to get in on some of the fun. She was quite sad that Stian got to do all of the fun stuff and she couldn't.

Stian's finally tall enough for bumper cars!

Memphis Music and Heritage Festival

One of the best things (if not the best thing) about moving to Memphis is that my friend from graduate school, Carla, lives here. We've gotten together with her quite a few times both with and without the kids. Yesterday we went downtown to the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival with her.

It's summer in Memphis, so it was very hot yesterday afternoon. So we decided to go into the Peabody Hotel before we went to the festival and let it cool off a little outside. The Peabody is a beautiful old hotel downtown that has a fountain in the lobby. And in the fountain live 5 ducks. Apparently, as the story goes, back in the 1930s the general manager of the hotel went on a hunting trip to Arkansas with a friend. They returned late at night and had a little too much whiskey to drink. They thought it would be hilarious if they put a few of their live hunting decoy ducks in the hotel's fountain. And I guess the guests loved it, and so there have been ducks in the fountain ever since. The ducks live up on the roof of the hotel and spend 11:00-5:00 every day down in the fountain in the lobby.

We got to the hotel in time to see the ducks exit the fountain, walk across a red carpet (that they rolled out just for them) in single file, to the elevators, get on the elevator and head up to their rooftop home. It was pretty amusing.

It was still darn hot outside after the ducks were done with their march, but we headed out to the festival anyway. Stian wanted to do a craft, and fortunately they had a few craft tables set up (inside! in air conditioning!). So Stian made himself a crown.

Then we wandered out into the heat. There was music in different venues and some vendors set up and food. It was pretty low key, but we enjoyed ourselves.

A drill team type group did a performance that Stian enjoyed watching.

The festival was on Main Street down town which does not allow cars. It's pedestrians and trolleys. A trolley came by and Stian enjoyed getting an up close look at it. We haven't taken him on a trolley ride yet because they aren't air conditioned and it's been so hot. We've been saving it for an activity for a cooler day.

After the festival we wandered over to a local burger place and had a nice dinner. While we were in there the skies just opened up and there was an amazing down pour and thunder storm. Eventually Kris and Carla went running out into it to get cars. The kids and I waited at the restaurant. We timed it just wrong as they ran back in pouring rain, with water up over their shoes, finally got to the parking garage, got in their cars, and it quit raining. Ah well.

Incidentally, it is not any cooler today after the huge storm last night. It's just muggier.