Nothing against our scouts, by any means! But we have had so much on our schedules lately (our fault, I know), that every time we had some time or a spare moment, there was something planned for us. Soccer game, scout function, something. We just looked at one another and said "let's do something that we planned instead, rather than do something that was planned for us."
Let me say, just to clarify, that I don't generally condone shirking responsibility (yeah right, I'm a shirker by nature, lol), but this weekend was a much needed shirk.
The weather was supposed to be gorgeous and it was the last weekend of Oktoberfest in Helen, something that the hubs has always wanted to go to.
So Saturday morning we got up, grabbed Nanny (my grandmother) and took off. On the way to Helen, we made a spontaneous detour through Cleveland so Nanny and I could go to Babyland General Hospital...the Cabbage Patch Kid place...
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| Nanny and the boys. |
The boys were good little troopers and suffered through the tour of the place while Nanny and I oohed and aahed over the dolls.
After that, we were back on our way to Helen. I spent many summers hanging out in that town, tubing down the river and just getting to know the shop owners when I was younger. The Dutch/German design of all the buildings is cool to see and the atmosphere is usually pretty good.
Unless it's Oktoberfest.
Good grief at the people! We expected busy, but to be honest it kinda blew our mind. And the town has gotten much more tourist-y over the last few years. Many of the handmade candle stores and candy shops have been turned into one of only 50 or so different t-shirt and gift shops. Even though we were enjoying ourselves, we were disappointed.
After taking a couple of hours to walk through all the shops, we headed over the fest hall where the Oktoberfest festivities were going on. We sat around and listened to the German bands they had, watched the people dance around in their lederhosen (is that how you spell that?) and drink German beer.
Well, we watched the majority of the people dance around in their lederhosen with their German beer. There were a few small groups of people we saw dressed up in their mini-skirts walking around with pitchers of Miller Lite. Really? C'mon people! German beer and lederhosen, and you guys want short skirts and flat, domestic yucky?? *Sigh*
Even with the disappointment in the tourist-y town, we really did have a great day! The weather stayed beautiful and we really enjoyed not being on a time restraint or having someplace else to be!
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| They love these photo-op, prop thingies... |
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| The hubs snapped this photo while Bailey was trying to patiently wait for his lunch. I absolutely LOVE this shot of my eldest! :) |
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| He's 6, so of course that's really Heineken and not Nanny's diet coke. |
Sunday we had a big day planned as well. Besides it being Halloween, it was Rockband 3 day for our band!! :D
We headed over to Tracy's place with mucho excitement. Well, I was mucho excited anyway. Rockband is my favorite video game! I was raised around music. I love music. My dad is a musician and I always wanted to learn to play the guitar. Unfortunately, I could never "play through" the callouses and the owies on my fingers.
Then came Guitar Hero and Rockband. And I discovered I could finally play! As long as there were colored keys anyway...
Two Christmas's ago, Tracy's gang got the first Rockband. Since then, we played as often as we could. Rockband 2 came out and we were giddy. The Beatles Rockband made an appearance and we were giddy still. Now there is Rockband 3 which brings additional instruments into the mix. We had a keytar!
Hehe... I love saying keytar. Like git-fiddle. Just one of those words that makes me go "tee hee."
Anyway, the adults popped in our shiny new game and had a great time for a couple of hours. We eventually let the 4 boys play, albeit begrudgingly.
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| The "next big thing" you say? Quite possibly. |
Soon it was time to dress up and hit the streets looking for candy.
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| Q dressed as a cool-beard-goggle thingy. Braeden as a dragon with a leopard paw. Bailey as a weird zombie/wizard hybrid. ISO as a bouncing bunny. Z as a butcher...with serial killer tendencies. |
Initially we were really glad that they were going to do trick or treating in town on Sunday, since Sunday was in fact Halloween. That gladness went away slightly when we found out that because it was Sunday, it was starting at 4pm. Yeah...doesn't sound like ideal light settings for a goulish evening, does it?
After about an hour and maybe a dozen houses that were actually handing out candy, we all gave in to our hunger and headed to the pizza buffet in town. Buffets, of any type, can be hit or miss. Sometimes there's not enough selection, sometimes it's gotten cold. But I love them when the restaurant is packed and busy. There's always plenty of hot and fresh on the buffet!
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| I think they enjoyed it! |
No one seemed too bothered by the lack of "treating" so after dinner we headed back to Tracy's for more Rockband fun.
Normally, our band consists of Scott on vocals, Tracy on drums, T on guitar/bass and myself on guitar/bass. With the addition of the keyboard, we even got Walter and P in on the fun that night! There are some great songs on the new game and we all really had a good time and are very much looking forward to our next jam session! :)
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| Walter got a 95% on the keyboard. Tracy got a 99% on drums at the hard difficulty. Scott got 99% on vocals on hard - but he always does great... And see that...that 100% on expert? That's me baby! What did I tell you? I really am the next Jimi Hendrix! ;) (We don't have to acknowledge that those scores were achieved on what is quite possibly the easiest song EVAR, m'kay?) |
All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better weekend with my family and friends! I hope all of you enjoyed your Halloween weekend as well!
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