Memorial Day Weekend 2008 - Part One

My friends Deb and Toine are in town visiting over Memorial Day weekend. We’ve had a really fun visit so far. They made dinner for us when they arrived on Thursday - the fajitas were terrific. Mikaela was excited to help cook Shabbat dinner for our friends, and was especially helpful making the challah. Saturday morning Toine made a valiant effort to shoot portraits of the kids. But rain interfered with our first choice of taking them at Deanna Rose, and by the time we got to our second choice - Deb & Toine’s hotel - the kids were already pretty antsy. I’ll be mighty impressed if Toine was able to capture much that is usable.

Sunday was a Festivalful day. Mikaela and I went with Deb and Toine to the Great American Barbeque Festival for lunch and carnival fun. After a pit stop at home to wash up a bit and change out of our sweaty clothes, we reconvened for Celebration at the Station. Thanks to our wonderfully generous friend Dana, we had VIP passes for the event. The VIP passes got us into the VIP tent, featuring a catered dinner; a table to sit at; ready access to free, cold, drinks; and a nice, level, relatively open area for Jonathan to roam safely. The Symphony did a terrific job - even the kids enjoyed the music. We were concerned that Jonathan would get cranky as it got late, but he was dancing like a dervish at 9:00 p.m. And both kids enjoyed the fabulous fireworks display (Mikaela took that picture). Jonathan kept leaning and reaching toward them and saying, “Ohhhhhhhh”. We all had a blast, and I hate to think about how it might have gone if we’d been left with our original plan of staking out a good spot early and not having the conveniences afforded us by the VIP tent.