Our adventures last weekend...and the one before that

There have been SO many events and festivals going on the past couple weekends, it's been a lot of fun. Tim also is on a new class schedule and we are loving it. He is home early enough during the week that we can actually do family things in the evening and aren't quite as exhausted on the weekends <3

A couple weekends ago we decided to try out a restaurant called Shivers.

And would you look at the cuties I spotted sitting out front? They are keepers. Shivers is in a quaint downtown setting and had super yummy food. Southern specialties for sure. Fried this, fried that and yummy local fish like mahi maui and grouper. Delish. 

After dinner we walked down the street to Milky Moo's for some tasty treats. Tim and I had ice cream, and little miss thang handpicked a rice krispy treat dipped in frosting and (of course) sprinkles. The girl has good taste. 

Definitely a fun family night. The next day we went back to the same area for the local Annual Crawdad and Music Festival. Talk about a good time! There were such talented musicians. Makaela loved the jams and the people watching

They had all sorts of food like Alligator on a Stick, Fried Twinkies and of course Crawdads. I'd eaten crawdads before, like in pasta dishes, where apparently the chef had already done the hard work for me. I never had them in this form where I had to dissect them to get to the good stuff. 

We had no clue what we were doing or what parts we should or shouldn't eat. Luckily someone sitting by us picked up on our hesitation, asked us if we were first timers and showed us the ropes. Thanks dude. 

Last weekend was a busy one too! We started our Saturday off at the Tristate BBQ Festival. The air smelled of BBQ for miles. My mouth is watering thinking about it. 

It was an awesome festival. There were cook-offs, demonstrations, live music, a car show and all the BBQ, beer and tea (unsweetened for me!) you could ever imagine.

And the best part? Makaela got to experience her first pony ride!! It was so adorable. I don't think she knew what to think. She wasn't crying, but she wasn't giggling either. She had a very straight what-the-heck kind of face and clenched onto her goldfish crackers the whole time. 

After that we zipped over to the Children's Festival right by our house. They had tons of activities for kids of all ages - pictures with the Easter Bunny, Easter egg hunts, bouncy houses, arts and crafts, magicians and a petting farm.

Makaela thought the Easter Bunny was an okay guy (gal?). 

Gosh I'm glad I wasn't the one in the suit. It was H-O-T out. Bunny was probably pretty darn sweaty under all that fur...mmmm. 

I think the best part was the Easter Egg pick up. They had actual hunts for the older kids, but for 3 and under they just dumped out some eggs onto a gym mat. It was so sweet.

Mak didn't really understand the concept of "collecting" the eggs. She preferred to set them back down after she was done with them. And by done I mean, after she clinked them together and shoved them into her mouth :)

She also enjoyed looking at all of the farm animals. Naturally this was a pretty popular spot, so we didn't spend a ton of time visiting. 

She was pretty impressed with the ducks. One of her favorite books at the moment is 5 Busy Ducklings so I think she was SHOCKED that these little creatures existed outside the pages of her board book. 

We finished the afternoon off with a funnel cake and some deep fried bananas, dinner of champions. I'm pretty sure I consumed a pound of powdered sugar. 

Thank goodness we only had a 2 block walk home, I was ready to unbutton my pants and the princess girl was ready for bed <3