Pioneer Days Festival - Year 9

  We had another year of fun at the Pioneer Days Festival over the Labor Day weekend! We have been attending this festival since Briana was 4 years old. Five years ago, we started attending the fair with our friends Khalid, Ansu and Kira and went together for 4 years in a row, but sadly this year, they were not able to join us. But as luck would have it, Bri's friend Meredith and her family were interested in checking it out this year. So, we went with the C family and we had such a good time!

Here are all our trips to the fair...

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 3 - Bungee
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Year 7

Year 8

...and now we are at Year 9!

The first thing the girls wanted to ride was the Pirate Ship... 

Then they did the Flying Dutchman with Meredith's younger brother Dane. He did almost all the big rides with the girls! He is fearless!!!

The girls did the "Ring of Fire" on their own. Meredith wasn't too sure about going upside down, but Bri convinced her! And guess what? They went again a second time!!!

Fun slide race...

The girls did Alien Abduction - too much spinning for me...

A pretty view of the festival from the ferris wheel (unfortunately, the wheel is so squeaky now that it made it less fun to ride this year. I may have to skip next year)...

After riding some more rides and eating some dinner, Bri wanted to try some games...

B won a blow up light saber. Meredith grabbed the light saber that Dane won at another game and the girls started dueling...

How can you leave the fair without getting a funnel cake?

The lights starting to come on...

Pretty view at night...

We like to get to the fair right around dinner time. It is so much easier to hop on and off rides when it is still light outside. It gets so super crowded after dark. If we stay long enough, we get to see the lights come on and enjoy a little of the nighttime festivities.

We had so much fun with the C family! Hopefully, we will get to go to the fair again next year - Year 10!

Jason Mraz Concert

Wow - what an AMAZING concert! Doug and I have been Jason Mraz fans since his first big hit "The Remedy." I used to listen to the songs from his albums all the time when Bri was a baby. His song "Lucky" was the ringtone on my cell a while back. I think that may be why B is a fan of his now!

We were a bit worried about the weather on concert day because the forecast predicted that there would be a 70-80 percent chance of rain all day that Saturday - and the venue we were going to was an outdoor venue. I had rain ponchos ready to go in case - and we just hoped it wasn't going to thunderstorm.

Concert goers are allowed to bring food and drinks to the venue, but with the high rain chances, we didn't want a bunch of food to get wet. We decided to eat at the Tupelo Honey Cafe before we went to the venue...

Such a cute place!!!

The food was SO good...

Briana scarfed down this fried chicken and mac n cheese...

As we were eating, it was pouring outside - ugh!!!

After a delicious meal, we tackled finding parking and made it the venue (Doug actually found a fantastic spot - we totally lucked out).

The rain actually stopped right after we left the restaurant. We got into the venue rain free and bought some t-shirts before sitting down.

Here is Bri and the venue view...

Walking to our seats...

My two loves...

Family photo opp (we put our ponchos on and hoped that it wouldn't downpour)...

It did start to rain a little before and during the opening act, but it wasn't bad at all.

As we were waiting for the opening act, Jason Mraz came out and surprised all of us...

He thanked everyone for coming out in the rain and introduced his opening act. What a cool guy...

The opening act - Brett Dennen...

And then it was time for the main attraction...

Loved watching Bri watch him...

Immersed in the concert...

Jason Mraz is so charismatic and so amazingly talented. And his message is so positive - "Good Vibes." His band is also amazing - especially all the amazing women he has working with him...

He's the "Geek In The Pink"...

Love how they all wore colored jumpsuits...

This girl was having her picture taken in front of the stage. Mraz jumped in and posed for the photo - how awesome is that?

His whole band...

The final number...

Bri with Jason Mraz behind her...

He sang so many wonderful songs, but below are snippets of all his big hits. He also did a little tribute to Aretha Franklin because she had just passed...

The concert was SO good and it completely stopped raining right before Mraz came out. It never rained at all during his entire performance. So amazing!

Miss B was super excited to show off her shirt on Monday at school (even though most of the kids probably don't know who Jason Mraz is - LOL!)...

This was Bri's second concert. Her first one was Pentatonix. We are really looking forward to her third. We hope it will be sometime in November. We will let you know!

Thank you Jason Mraz for such a fun evening!

Our Life Without Soccer

So how's our life going without soccer?

This is going to sound weird, but...I don't really miss soccer all that much. I know - it's crazy. I thought I would be more sad. And I don't think Bri really misses it all that much either. She hadn't been feeling it for while. I mean, I do miss watching her play (when she was into it), I do miss the friends we made, and I'm grateful for the experience she had, but overall, I don't really miss it as much as I thought I would. Actually, I kind of feel like we have our lives back.

The work load in 7th has been harder for sure. Bri has had homework to do on the weekends and she has homework every day after school...

We have been filling our weekends with movies...

Yummy meals out...

(If this statement were only true - LOL!)...

We've perused bookstores...

Had a haircut...

Attended a concert (more on that in another post)...

Visited a scary Halloween store...

Ate Thai ice cream...

And went to a fair (more on that soon)...

And you all know Bri loves her down time. She's had plenty of that on the weekends too.

Bri plans to join running club again and wants to run a 5K or two during the school year. And she will have to do a certain number of hours of volunteer work for Beta Club - which she will have time for now on the weekends.

If Bri had loved every minute of playing soccer, then I would have continued to do my soccer mom duties and would have been at each and every game with bells on. It's just not her thing anymore and that is ok. I've made peace with it. I'll say I miss it a little, but I'm surprisingly not grieving over it.

I'll let you know how running club and Beta club are going in a few weeks.

 Do you know what we have planned for this weekend? I'm not sure yet! The sky is the limit!