Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Last weekend, we packed up a picnic lunch and ventured into our "backyard" for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/), a weekend-long music festival in Golden Gate Park. This is one of our favorite San Francisco institutions for two reasons: 1) great music, 2) it's FREE! A billionaire investment banker and avid hobby banjoist coughs up the dough to pay for this event, year in and year out. In exchange for funding HSB, his band gets a spot on one of the stages, which seems fair enough.
Saturday, we met some friends to see Okkervil River and bask in the warm sun. Susannah, never one to lie around and bask, kept busy by working the crowd (which for her generally consists of waving at random strangers and approaching dogs to within 5 feet, stopping, and staring at them). Despite the combination of huge crowds and complete non-enforcement of the ban on outside liquor, in the three years we've been going to HSB we have never seen an instance of rowdiness, or things getting even slightly out of control. The atmosphere is impressively family-friendly. Someone even offered to push Susannah's stroller up a hill for me if I held his beer. "Ummm......thanks, but no thanks" was my reply.
The next day, we headed back to see Billy Bragg and Neko Case. Well, we didn't actually SEE either of them since we positioned ourselves quite far away from the stages to protect Susannah's little ears and give ourselves elbow room. But we could hear the music just fine, and it was pretty awesome. To top it off, we were joined by friends Ben, Erin, and their sweet 2 year-old Esme, who played a rousing game of peek-a-boo with Susannah.
Good weather, good company, good music.....I'd say we got our money's worth.



Peek-a-boo!



Flying!



Taking in the scene

Wearing Mommy's Shoes

Recently, Susannah has shown interest in wearing big girl shoes. VERY big girl shoes. Generally, she prefers my shoes to Alex's (thank God, the girl has some taste). During the past few weeks she has tried out many different shoes and seems to prefer my red Clarks sandals, which are both stylish and sensible (just like us, of course). She likes to clomp around with one shoe on, not necessarily on the right foot, but hey - you have to start somewhere. As you can see in the second video, she also likes to "put on" her own clothes. It's amazing how much kids learn by mimicking - you really have to think twice before you do or say anything!