Festival Season!

This was my first summer working festivals and it was such a blast! It was long hard hours of standing and sitting and standing and sitting but it was so worth it for the contacts that I made, the practice and improvement in my painting, and of course the money was nice too!!! Festivals are such a gamble because you never know what the weather will be like, what the turn out will be, and what competition you will have. I still can't believe how well things turned for me and I feel so blessed! At each festival I was amazing how popular face painting was! I guess it shouldn't surprise me, because whenever we would go to a festival before this, that is the first thing my kids wanted to do.

Here I am at my first festival ever, West Fest in West Valley. I was so nervous! It was a good festival to start with though, because they provided the canopies, so I didn't have to deal with that added stress. Plus it was 3 days long so I had time to work up to the busy Saturday. I knew this festival had a huge turnout, so that is partly why I chose it. I had to compete with another face painter who was charging less, but it still turned out okay.

After that I did the Eclipse Premier at Jordan Landing. This was a good event, but I don't think I will work with this vendor again. At first I thought that I was literally going to have to pack up and go home because it was soooo windy!!! My friend Chandelle came and helped me and we had fun together, except we were so busy we didn't even have a chance to breathe much less eat the dinner she brought for us. So we bought ice cream afterwards instead! And then after the event, to really prove that I am crazy, we went and saw the movie at midnight!!! That was too crazy for me since I am clearly not a night person. I did stay awake except for a couple of quick nods at the end, but I still wish I had just gone to go see it the next day with the sane people :)
It is always fun to see all of the crazy (or should I say zealous) fans!

Then came the 4th of July weekend! This year was super gracious to me because it landed on a Sunday, which meant us Utahns were going to celebrate on Saturday AND Monday. Perfect!

So on Saturday I worked 12 hours in Riverton, and it was such a blast. I had a line almost from the moment I got there! I was the only face painter there this time. The good thing about being that busy is that you don't have time to think about being hungry or tired. In the afternoon, my wonderful Hattie (also my babysitter) came to help me. I have hired her to come and do tattoos at several events and she has done so great! She is not afraid to go up and talk to people and close the sale :)

I met some really great people in Riverton and I think I really want to go back next year.
Our cousins came to visit one their way down to the Stadium of Fire, so I painted them.
On Sunday the kids and I spent the night at my sisters so that I could leave bright and early to work in Layton on Monday. This time my nieces came along to help me the whole day, in shifts.

It is funny because each day I would think that there is no way that I could ever be busier than that day, and then the next day I would be way busier! But if I was busy in Riverton, it was nothing compared to how things were in Layton! Wow! I picked this festival because it was closer to my sister, and also because we used to go to it, and it was always packed. But that still did not prepare us for the masses and masses of people that came! At first it was super slow and I thought it was going to stay that way, but then within minutes, we had a line! It was fun working with my cute nieces too. The crazy thing is that this time there were like 4 other face painter there! One was even just a few feet away. I couldn't believe when I would look up and there was a line of like 15 or 20 kids!My sister and brother in law (and parents, and other SIL...) all took care of my kids that day because Jonas was working. It was a really long time too, because I was at the festival for 12 hours, plus set up and take down. My brother in law even carried "the beast" on this back to the car afterwards! What a great family I have! The beast is what I affectionately call my canopy...it's HUGE!!

This time I really didn't have time to take hardly any pictures but luckily, some nice customers sent me this picture later. Aren't these boys the cutest?

A few more things to note and I am going to end this enormous post. In case you are wondering, I purposely scheduled a bunch of festivals all within like a two week period. I kind of wanted to get them all out of the way and then enjoy the rest of the summer. But then I totally loved doing them and kept looking for more later in the season.

Oh, and originally I was excited because by the time our Texas cousins came to visit, I would be done with all of this craziness. But unexpectedly my SIL grandmother passed away, and they had to come sooner! So their trip overlapped with all of this, and I didn't get to see them as much as I would have liked. We made it work though.

And lastly, having such a successful festival season made me so grateful for Jandy's help. If it weren't for her, I know things wouldn't have gone as smoothly as they did. When I told her how well I did, she was so happy for me and said that she was just as excited as if it were her! I don't think a lot of people would have been as giving as she has been, which is just such a testament to her great character. Thanks Jandy!

Visit From Our Favorite Texas Cousins!

Oh it is a joyous time when cousins from out of town come and visit! That is one of the wonderful part of living by grandparents...everyone comes to see us!We got to have a birthday celebration for my darling little niece that was turning 11.

Isn't she a cutie?

We threw her a surprise birthday party! The cousins are getting so creative when it comes to celebrating birthdays, I love it!

As part of the festivities, I got to paint all of the cute faces (except for my own kids, as you can see, haha...they must be sick of it!)

Lagoon with Cousins

We decided to take the kids to Lagoon and torture them by not letting them ride the rides. Instead we walked around and looked at all of the amazing, (and amazingly boring), museums and such. Hahahaha!!!They look very tortured right??

We even got to see some of the poor animals that have to live at an amusement park. (what?)

Cousin Alex was in town from back east so that was a real treat!

In the end, they were just happy to run around with their cousins for a few hours!

(By the way...my kids did get to go to Lagoon once this summer to ride rides. There, hopefully that prevents any "hate mail" about what a bad mom I am! :)

Venture Outdoors

Okay, if you know me, than you know that I know summer festivals!! I love them!! And every year, this festival takes the cake. (Except for last year, when it got rained out, but nevermind that)
The fun begins when you get to park your car and take a little free shuttle bus to the park. (How's that for exciting already?)

Here's what we did:

Mini Golf

Smiled at the camara with painted hair (from another festival, sorry)

Oh Taye was so funny, he wanted to stand by this horse and hold on to it's leg for the longest time. He didn't care (and neither did they) that the men were in the middle of some educational presentation. He just stood there, holding on quietly and listening. :)



And he even got to ride a little pony himself! (Jasmine got to too!) I know he looks concerned, but that is just how he almost always looks in pictures...he's posing.

Waiting in line for the zip line...how cute!

Rolling down the hill in a giant inflatable ball? So much fun!

Riding the zip line 1 (sorry out of order, blogger is so not picture friendly!)

Riding the zipline 2 (Doesn't that guy on the side look kinda creepy?)

Shayden's highlight: Archery!

I love summer!!

Jetblue Day

Jetblue celebrates 10 years this year and they had a huge celebration at the Park City Mountain Resort. My parents met us there but I didn't get any pictures with them.

Breathtaking Mountain Views!There was lot's to do but the best was riding the rides cause they are normally so expensive!! Jonas' and I had to tag team and go on the zip line seperately. I have always wanted to ride a zip line! And while it wasn't the "riding through the rainforest" experience I have dreamed of, it was a thrill and super cool!

The whole family got to ride the Alpine Slide and that was fun. Shayden even went on his own!

Here is Jonas holding up the line since he had to go so slow with Tayevion. Doesn't the girl behind him look so annoyed? Oh speaking of going slow, my parents decided to ride the tram up and then back down after we left just for fun. Well, I guess they got off on accident and HAD to go down the slide! My mom was so scared and I am sure also caused a traffic jam!

Here's Jasmine and I going down together!

The tram ride going up. That was almost just as fun as the ride itself!

And a picture of my three little cutie pies:

Summertime...love it!

rockin' it out at the Manuel home!

pickin' the nose with yogurt and no shame...yum!

and climbing trees...what else says summer more than these?

Princess Festival

We heard about this Princess Festival that goes on in Lindon, Utah from a friend, and fell in love with the whole idea and concept of it! A wonderful and very giving family set it up at their home (a beautiful, very creative, and large property) and all of the proceeds go to help build dams and support orphanages in Kenya. How cool is that?? After hearing about it, I contacted them and offered to donate some painting time. They gave me a free ticket for Jasmine in exchange, and boy did she have a ball!

Here the princesses are entering the castle!

Tea party with Alice!

These grounds are so beautiful!

Our friend that told us about the festival also made this beautiful dress for Jasmine. It was the first time she got to wear it. Thank you Chandelle!

Finding out what the princess adventure will be like...

Can he pull out the sword?

Big brother will help! Yes even the boys got to come one of the days and just walk around and play.

Finding out if the "slipper" fits.

And Jasmine's favorite part of all: meeting and making friends with Ariel! She splashed around with her all morning and could not stop talking about how Ariel was her friend!

Shayden's Birthday Week age 9

Shayden turned 9 already! Where has the time gone?

Here he is having his birthday breakfast...healthy choice huh?

He got this hat at school and I made him wear it all week.

He secretly loved it, although he wouldn't admit it.

The week started off with taking him fishing for free fishing day. They love to fish even though they don't often catch something!

And what could be better than sharing a birthday with your closest cousin? Check out this awesome chess cake that my sister made! Both boys love chess.

They were dissapointed when we told them we actually had to cut the cake and eat it.

Opening presents at the cousins party.

It wasn't Shayden's year to have a big party, but he did get to enjoy the day at Boondocks!

Tricking the basketball game into giving tons of tickets (sneaky!) haha

Tayevion found a ball and of course carried it around everywhere.

The girls are such good little friends now.