bluegrass 2011

Our Winfield story was quite a bit different than usual.

Definitely a memorable year.

Here's our story...

(pictures were very limited this year...not sure why...maybe it was the weather, or just being preggo and being a bit more lazy than usual)

We got there Wednesday evening, a day earlier than we've ever been able to make it before. (in the end, I'm super glad for this extra time there!)

We got camp set up and then sat down for a campfire and smores.

It just baffles me that for months we have been SO worried about how hot it might be.

And when it got here - we were more on the cold side than the hot side.

Actually, it was pretty close to perfect, especially with some extra layers of clothes.

It was just the drizzling rain (pretty non-stop for 2 days) that made it not so perfect.  But even with that, it was light enough that we could still be out in it for the most part.

We definitely were not letting it put a damper on the weekend, and were still having such a great time.

Pancakes and bacon on our first morning.

I made sure to pack some activities and games for the kids, which came in handy more than once.

Our first afternoon they had fun collecting rocks and sticks and painting them.

Another thing that was a lifesaver was the portable dvd player.  I thought it would help wind them down at nap time and bed times, little did I know that it would also be a way to pass time one morning we were stuck in our camper for over 3 hours because of a storm.

They couldn't agree on where the movie would sit so they could both see it, so Daddy came up with this lovely set up that did the trick.

We really had a great time Thursday and Friday, yummy meals on the campfire, hit some of our favorites shows and favorite concessions.

The cooler scooter was a hit, especially with a certain cute little boy driving his pregnant momma around on it.

Really, he got SOOO good.  He kept it at the right speed and kept it going straight along the campground roads.

It took me a little while to actually want to ride it - I didn't so much like the attention it got.  But my body was definitely feeling it after lots of walking and getting out of breath so easily.  So I made use of it off and on, with my little chaufer. (man, I wish we would have gotten pictures of that).

I've been pregnant at Bluegrass before - actually 8 months along with Taylor.

But that was 5 years ago, and my first pregancy.  Things were not quite as easy this time around.

I was very thankful for a very helpful hubby that took good care of me.

The kids slept great each night.

I wish I could say the same. Last year when we borrowed our friends' camper I remember thinking that bed was so comfy.  But being big and pregnant made a little difference this year.  We added some extra padding the next nights and it was much better.

So then Saturday came.  My birthday.

We woke up at 7am to thunder, lightning and rain.  The kids slept through an hour and a half of it, so really, that in itself was not bad at all.

But the storm went on and on.  Again, not terrible.  When the kids got up we all cuddled in our bed for awhile, ate breakfast, played games and watched movies.

The terrible part was having to go the bathroom so bad, but not wanting to get soaked to make it there.

That was pretty awful.

But then it got worse when the winds picked up and we started to hear things around our camp being knocked over.
We opened our door to find this mess.

Our canopy (Dave's father's day gift last year) was broken enough we had to trash it.
Our nicely set-up and organized camp kind of looked like a bear had come through.

When the rain finally stopped, we cleaned up camp and waited for the sun and  75 degrees that was suppossed to hit that day.

And it did!  Sun for the first time in 2 1/2 days.

We had been in town to take showers at a friends 2 days before and stopped at a few garage sales.

One sale had a big 12x20 screened in canopy just like we had been wanting for a few years.  But we passed it by that day, thinking we'd maybe head back on Saturday to see if it was still there.

Since we lost our canopy in the storm, we headed back and got it for a sweet deal!

We debated actually setting it up, since we only had one day left.  But of course after all that cool weather, now we found ourselves a little warm roasting in the sun with no shade.  So up it went (it took a whole camp effort!).

It was up for maybe an hour before the sky started clouding up again and we were hearing reports of a bad storm headed our way.  In fact, a text we got said "batton down the hatches".

So down it went.

Radar was not looking good. We were in a tornado watch, and security told us that there were 2 systems headed our way, that involved hail. They advised us if we were in a tent to go to a motel, and if we were in a camper to hold on tight.

Our wonderful smoked-rib dinner turned into a "stuff-your-face-as-fast-as-you-can-and-then-pack-up-camp" dinner.

It was hard to know what to do.  Just pack things up that would blow around? Wait it out in the camper? Pack the camper down to keep it safe? Head to our friend's house in town and wait out the storm and then continue the night and Sunday morning as usual?

Dave decided we needed to get the camper down in the final minutes before the storm was suppossed to hit. Which is hard to do when there is tons of stuff all over in it.

We got it down and everything in camp packed up into trucks.

The lightning was getting SUPER scary and close.

At this point, even when the storm passed, the work that would go back into setting the camper back up, getting beds made, and all that jazz to spend our last night there seemed a little pointless.

So for the first time ever, we packed up and headed home early. The kids were bummed, we were bummed, and all I kept thinking (in my own selfishness and not my concern for the thousands of people at the festival) was how dissappointing it would be if all of it was for no reason and the storm didn't even hit.

But it was obvious as we fought the traffic lines out of the fairgrounds, that lots of others were making the same choice. 

Better to be safe than sorry.

I think the storm really didn't end up hitting like it was suppossed to, from what we saw on radar.  Winfield ended up being right on the edge.

But we did hear that lighting hit a camp (no injuries that I heard of), and it was felt quite strongly by those around.

So Bluegrass 2011, and my 30th birthday ended with a shower, a piece of yummy zuchinni birthday cake from my mom, a pepsi, the couch, and the season premier of Survivor with my hubby.

And then my comfy bed that I had definitely been missing.

Despite the craziness and earlier departure,

the kids are already asking how much longer till next year.