Weekend in Memphis

Joe Cool

 We spent the long weekend in Memphis hanging out with my side of the family.

It was the best kind of busy because it didn't feel busy.

First thing Saturday morning, the kids broke in their new baseball bats and ran through the sprinklers in my parents' front yard.

Lady Liberty

 Then, my saintly mom and dad took the munchkins to this amazing park out at Shelby Farms while Mike and I got to shop (!). By ourselves. Without having to chase small people around or weather the storm of tantrums that inevitably follows the command to keep their shoes on and hands to themselves.

 I digress.

Anyway, that afternoon we took the littles down to Rhodes College to check out the Fairytale Festival and to take in a (free) ballet performance of Cinderella.  We just caught the tail end of this event, but it had everything my kids could want in a festival: balloons, wand-making, face painting, bubble machine, balloons, disco, ballet, bounce houses, stilt walkers, and of course, balloons.  I had to do the face painting myself, so check out these mad skills:

Jellicle cat

The extremely rare and terrifying Liger.

 On Sunday, we headed downtown to take in our first baseball game.   Even though Autozone Park is relatively new, it has the feel of a park from baseball's heyday.  And they sell Rendezvous BBQ nachos.  Isn't that all you need for a good time?

Here's the windup.

Standing for the national anthem. That's her hand over her heart.

Instead of getting seats in the stadium (since we all know how great 2- and 3-year-olds are at sitting in one spot) we spread out a blanket on the hill by left field: prime real estate right next to the playground. We saw approximately 1 inning of baseball, and the rest of the time was spent sliding or hanging from the monkey bars. Only the lure of cotton candy and Rocky the Redbird could bring these diehard baseball fans back to watch somebody actually hit the ball.

A girl and her Grumps.

 By Monday's road-trip back to Nashville, we had two tuckered-out people.  The kids were pretty sleepy, too.