Autumn Treasures & BBQ Festival

A few weekends ago, we went to the Waxhaw Autumn Treasures and BBQ Festival. It was a free festival with craft & food vendors, activities for the kids and a BBQ tasting and competition. The competition started on Friday night and then the public tasting was on Saturday afternoon. The only problem was that by the time we got there, there was only one BBQ competitor for Jay and Arabella to taste test. Who knew that this would be so popular that in only 1 1/2 hours after the public tasting started all of the competitors but one would be out of meat! Insane! They enjoyed the small taste they got and then wanted BBQ for dinner!

We enjoyed watching them turn wood. Arabella was excited when they made her a top to play with!

After the BBQ tasting flop, we headed to the kids area. There was a little train to ride. Max wasn't sure what to make of it. Arabella enjoyed the bounce houses and the petting zoo. She also had a fun time doing a few free crafts that they had for the kids to do.

We definitely had a fun afternoon. And next year, we will make sure we get there early so that Jay and Arabella can get their BBQ tasting on!

October Lowes Build-n-Grow

Arabella always looks forward to her Lowes Build-n-Grow projects each month. This month, it was a game called the Monster Stacker. She was very excited to show me how to play it when she returned home from the project. It is pretty fun - you have to try and stack the candy pieces on the monster without it flipping them off. Max likes to try and eat the candy pieces! Great job Arabella - you are one little handy girl!

Happy Birthday Jay!

Jay's birthday was earlier this month...3 days after mine...he likes to remind me every so often that I am older than he is. But at least now we are both 38! Jay seemed to enjoy his day - he went to lunch with his Dad and Ricki and then they spent some time walking around downtown Waxhaw. Arabella wanted to make him a cake - we made him a double chocolate cake with raspberries in the filling. She had a fun time decorating it. He even got the kale and sausage lasagna that he asked for for dinner. He was one happy camper. We hope you enjoyed your day Jay. Happy 38th Birthday!!

Spiritwear Friday's - Favorite Storybook Character

Every Friday at Arabella's school is Spirit Day. They are normally supposed to wear the school t-shirts or other school themed spiritwear. However, every so often then do themed Spirit Days. Today was dress as your favorite storybook character. Arabella chose to dress as Fancy Nancy! We love to read the Fancy Nancy books together and since she has a ton of dress up clothes and accessories, it was easy for us to do Fancy Nancy. Arabella was so excited to be Fancy Nancy for a day...her only issue, I didn't make her hairdo big and curly enough for her. I had to drag out my hairspray and try to get it to be bigger...it was hysterical. I think we a did a good job of pulling off Fancy Nancy- I can't wait to hear what all the other children dressed as.

Treehouse Vineyards

We took the opportunity to visit a local vineyard when Dennis & Ricki visited. We drove to Monroe and a vineyard called Treehouse Vineyards. It is a small family run vineyard in one of the most unlikely places. You have to go through a neighborhood that looks a little rough around the edges and then it is just right there...a bit odd if you ask me.

We had beautiful weather and the tasting was out on a patio. We tasted about 8 wines...all of which were pretty sweet. They were good, but not the type of wine I enjoy. After the tasting, we had a tour of the wine making area which is pretty small. It was interesting to see how a smaller operation works, as I just have the Napa winery's that I have visited as a reference point. Arabella and Max had a good time too. Arabella wanted so badly to taste the wine, but all we did was let her smell it. We also took some time to explore the fields and then enjoy the beautiful Autumn day on one of the patios.

I think we all enjoyed ourselves...it was a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon!

Grandpa Dennis & Grandma Ricki Visit

Grandpa Dennis and Grandma Ricki visited us for a long weekend. Arabella was very excited to see them and had a lot of fun. She especially enjoyed playing badminton and looking for frogs in the backyard with Grandpa Dennis. It was a quick trip and unfortunately, I didn't take that many pictures when we were just hanging around home. It was nice to have them in town - Jay took them to downtown Waxhaw on Monday for lunch and we visited Treehouse Vineyards on Sunday (a separate post). Thanks for making the trip down to visit, we had a great time and hope you can come back soon!

Wordless Wednesday