What I found on my camera after my brother-in-law, a hobby photographer, visited.

Rain

Every time my poor father in law comes to see us there are a list of projects that Dave hasn’t gotten around to or doesn’t really know how to do yet.  He’s pretty handy in general but some things are easier with his dad’s help.  So, he waits until his dad comes and they usually work on them together.  I don’t intend for it to work out like this but it always does.  Somehow this time my “Honey-Do” list turned into what became known as the ”Daddy-Do” list.  With as crazy as the weekend was I thought I’d be lucky if the boys got around to anything until I was told to fetch some WD-40 and knew my window upstairs would finally close…yes it’s been cracked open since we moved in but we didn’t realize it until last month.  I didn’t realize it was being fixed like this:

So at this point I’m thinking 1) “Please don’t fall” and 2) “a little WD-40 and some elbow grease can fix anything”

And 3) “This guy can do anything!”  That last thought must have been what jinxed the rest of the list…

On Friday morning we had heard a clunk from the guest bathroom followed by laughter.  I realized that our towel bar was at it again.  You see when it was installed (before we owned the house) they put the ends too far away from each other so the bar was precariously balanced.  This typically goes unnoticed by me since I never use the bathrooms upstairs unless guests are coming.  So of course without my knowing it was added to the “Daddy-do” list.

Sure enough, Saturday morning Mr Dave (the Mr means my hubby’s dad to avoid confusion) and George head upstairs with a stress ball we had gotten from the Army guys down at Music Fest and a determined look on their faces. Dave and I exchanged looks wondering what they were up to.  Apparently they thought they could wedge pieces of the stress ball into the holes and squeeze the bar in to stay…Where this crazy idea came from I don’t know but I’m thinking George’s initial thought of good ole’ super glue would have been a better option.  Less than 2 minutes later we hear a loud clunk, some muffled voices and laughter. We dashed upstairs, camera in hand knowing this had to be good.

Turns out, the towel bar wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

Don’t worry, nothing a little cement glue couldn’t fix

This mischievous look makes me wonder if this was no accident!  I’m sure you would never do anything like this on purpose and I won’t hold it against you for future visits.

  Happy Mother’s Day mom!  I love you!

Storms!  They started early Friday morning and the rain didn’t stop!  Saturday there weren’t any concerts we were dying to see so Dave made his traditional gigantic breakfast (pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits, fresh fruit, etc) that appears whenever we have company then we decided to hit up Tunica.  We each had $20 cards for Sam’s town they were handing out Friday night so we decided why not.  I won a whopping $18   Keeping with the theme of avoiding the crazy downtown it was Corky’s BBQ for dinner.  I know I should be ashamed for not taking out of towners to Rendezvous or Interstate, but Corky’s is really good and we really didn’t want to go all the way downtown.

Sunday we ate brunch at the club then changed from our Sunday best into our ponchos and “mud shoes.”  Thankfully I had prepared our guests to bring mud ready clothes and Friday morning we had stocked up on mud ready shoes from Target.

The “big kids” headed straight out to catch the end of Jerry Lee Lewis (Great Balls of Fire guy), & Bonnie Raitt (Something to Talk About).  Us young’ins started again at Beale Street, this time in the Blue City Cafe to get out of the rain.  Side note: If you’re ever in Memphis see if the Dempseys are playing, their home base is the Blues City Cafe and they are so much fun!  They weren’t on that night but I get to see them tomorrow!

Our first concert stop was Snoop Dog.  We got there late so were at the back in the mud

Becky and I were very happy with our boots

The mud was like quick sand.  We kept sinking down into it and had to wiggle out.  I can’t tell you how many strangers I grabbed hold of trying not to fall.  You’ll notice in the above picture my hubby is missing a shoe. Every time he got stuck the velcro on his shoe would come undone so he ended up carrying them half the time.  Dustin was almost as bad in his flip flops but at least his stayed together.

It rained all night.

Dave  and I headed over to the James Taylor stage while Becky and Dustin went to see Hinder.  We waited until the end of Bonnie Raitt then wiggled our way up as close as we could get.

He was wonderful.  I loved all of the songs that bridged all the generations there.  Dave & I sang along with everyone else and had a great time.  The big kids were quite a bit closer than us since they’d already been there for 3 concerts, but we all met up afterwards and agreed it was one of our favorites of the weekend.

We skipped Fall Out Boy.  I really wanted to go but we couldn’t bear the thought of traipsing through more mud and decided to beat the crowds home.  We left just in time to catch the last pizza place open and chowed down at home while Dust & Becky packed to get on the road.  They drove the whole way that night and didn’t get home until about 5am!  Crazy!

The others left Monday morning.  We were sad to see everyone go and hope we can do it again next year…although I have to say that I’ll be wearing waders

Before last weekend gets away from me I thought I’d better jump on here and fill you in all our fun.  I had an emergency (yes there are occasionally emergencies in the packaging industry) trip to Wichita, KS this week and just got home today.  So to say I’m still not fully recovered from last weekend through today is an understatement…I want to sleep for a week straight.

Here’s how Memphis in May works.  Every weekend in May there is a big event.  The first weekend is always the Beale Street Music Festival.  It is not on Beale street, but instead it’s at the Tom Lee Park right on the river, about 3 blocks off Beale.  There are 3 stages set up and a Blues Tent.  Fri-Sun there are 55+ bands that come and play on 3 stages.  So you get 3 days of awesome music for less than $70 per ticket.  Apparently it rains every year and this year was no exception.  I’ll tell you about the rest of May later if we go to anything else, but this is all about the weekend of Music & MUD!

As I said before, Dave’s parents brought his Aunt Linda and Uncle George 

with them last weekend to go to the Beale St Music Mud Festival.  His brother Dustin came too with his girlfriend Becky.

Everyone got in on Thursday night and we hung out on the patio eating peel ‘n’ eat shrimp and enjoying the misty evening.  Friday morning we showed them Collierville’s square because we all know how much I love it.  Thankfully we made it back early enough to grab a quick nap because boy did we ever need it before we jumped into Friday night.

The night started with us hanging out for a bit on Beale St.  Then we made our way over to see Matt Nathanson who was absolutely hilariousFrom there we went to The Cult.  It was at The Cult concert that I noticed a little, OK ALOT more than drinking was going on.  I was naive enough at first to think it was cigars we were smelling then it dawned on me.  I saw my first pot being smoked but it wouldn’t be the last through the weekend.  Becky and I weren’t too into head banging during the Cult, but the guys really wanted to make sure they had a good spot for The Steve Miller Band so we hung out there until Brenda & Linda showed up to whisk us away to the Katy Perry concert one stage down. 

The 4 girls headed over and had so much fun.  Her concert was great and even had big blow up props all the way to a giant cherry chapstick. (Sorry for the crumy pictures but considering I was on a tiny cool pix in the dark I’m not too disappointed).  The illegal activities were significantly less watching Katy Perry but some guys decided that fighting would be a good substitute.  After poor Brenda was shoved into the rest of us one too many times, we moved away from the fight and danced our way through the rest of the concert.  Apparently the Steve Miller Band only played new stuff and the guys were pretty jealous that our pick was so much better.

After braving the porta-potties in the dark, thanking God for the invention of hand sanitizer and flashlights, All American Rejects was next.  All 8 of us got together for the last concert of the night.  They put on a great show and the longest concert of the night.  It was a beautiful evening and I was beginning to think I wouldn’t need my rain boots or emergency ponchos after all…we had no idea what was to come.