This past weekend was Memorial Day Weekend, still my favorite weekend of the year. It’s the unofficial start of summer…the three day weekend is always a glimpse of the possibilities of summer.  While barbeques are often the norm, we didn’t grill or eat a single burger or hot dog, nor did we spend any time with friends or neighbors.  And that was by choice.  While I love hanging out with friends and neighbors, it means we are always busy and doing things according to a schedule.  Having two working parents means that weekends are spent balancing the things that have to get done with the things that we want to do.  And believe me both those lists are pretty long.  Truthfully I feel as though we do a pretty good job of balancing the two; however, I still feel like I am always rushing through one thing just to get to the other thing.  Recently I have had the girls say things to me such as “stop rushing me”, “are we going to be late”, and “chop chop”. I made a vow to myself that this weekend was going to have no commitments. I purposely didn’t schedule things and even turned down some invitations with friends and neighbors. While it was hard, I kept reminding myself to stick with my plan of no commitments for the weekend. We would do Viva Vienna and then just go with the flow.  And it was wonderful!  While I know it isn’t realistic to have so few commitments most weekends, for one weekend of the year, it was great to simply have time to stop and smell the flowers along the way.

Saturday we went to Viva Vienna in the morning. We were there by 10:15 and not only were we there early, but also I was dressed in real clothes with make-up done AND I had already worked out!

We got there in time to watch the Vienna Singing Princess perform on stage at The Town Green.

The girls thoroughly enjoyed the show and even got to go on stage afterwards with the princesses.

After the show the girls went on rides…first Avery and Emerson went on the swings.

…followed by the kiddie roller coaster…

….and then the merry-go-round.  This was Harper’s first ride of the year and the beginning to Harper waving to Justin and I EVERY TIME she passed us.  It was amazingly cute!

…and here she is not waving this time, but pushing me away.  She didn’t want me to hold on to her or her horse!

Next were the motorcycles, where Harper’s waiving continued!

Next Avery and Emerson went on the massive potato sack slide.  As they were climbing up the steep stairs carrying their potato sacks that were bigger than them, I thought for sure that I was going to regret letting them go on this ride.  Luckily, they thoroughly enjoyed the five second ride and emerged from it unscathed.

In between the games, we took a break with some soft serve ice cream cones. The girls wanted to take their cones back to the Town Green where the princesses were performing for a second time that day.  They found a place right up front just as they did the first time.  Justin caught this image right before Harper ran over to him from being scared of the witch.

As it was approaching 2:00 and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, we decided it was the perfect day to walk over to Caboose Brewing Company and grab a cold beer and some food there.  Fortunately they had enough on the menu that the girls would eat (mac and cheese, pancakes, and bacon) and the wait was fairly short.

After a good lunch and buzz with less than half a beer, we arrived home close to 4:00 and while I never expected to be gone that long, it was so great not to rush through the day’s events in order to meet another timeline.

Sunday was a rain out and the girls weren’t able to go back to Viva Vienna as planned. They were disappointed but still got to spend the afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa while Justin and I had a few hours to get some grocery shopping done and some other things around the house.

When Monday rolled around and the weather was sunny and beautiful, we headed back for another day at Viva Vienna.  We started out on the rides.

And once again, Harper was all waves for Mommy and Daddy!

Meanwhile Avery was all laughs…

…and Emerson! Emerson took one for the team and went on the boat with a random person while Harper and Avery shared a motorcycle. She was about to get on the motorcycle when all of a sudden she ran back to the attendant with three tickets in her hand.  She had forgotten to give her tickets when she entered (clearly the attendant didn’t know)…I’m so proud of her moral compass!  I certainly would have pocketed the tickets for an extra ride…she definitely gets that trait from Justin!

After rides, it was time for ice cream…again!

In total we spent over four fun hours there taking pictures with princesses, riding rides, eating soft serve ice cream cones, watching dance performances, and going on more rides, including one ride with Papa!  And most importantly we were not being driven by the clock and had nothing but time (and three girls) on our hands this weekend!