Jane Austen Festival

Last weekend, the girls and I took off around 8:15 am and drove down to Louisville for our first ever Jane Austen Festival! A friend told us about it just 3 weeks prior. The weather was perfect; we finally had a slight break in the scorching summer – low 80s for temperatures and a cool breeze. Others we talked to at the festival said it was the coolest festival since they started having them 5 years ago.

The setting was Locus Grove, a historic home in Louisville that was built in 1790.

We did a self-guided tour of the house, although there were docents throughout who answered questions.  While in the house, we met a lady who was demonstrating how to make bobbin lace.  It was fascinating to watch her work and learn about how lace is made. 

After touring the house, we stopped in the Visitors’ Center to see a friend who is a milliner and makes Regency-era hats to sell at historical festivals like this.  Her hats were amazing – each one is unique - and she had sold all 15 of them by noon on the first day of the festival!  Aren’t they beautiful? 

I had planned to stop somewhere for lunch in Louisville, but we didn’t pass any restaurants from the exit ramp to the festival, and by then we were so excited to get there that we didn’t want to stop.  I remembered there was a sandwich shop at the festival (the “Earl of Sandwich Shoppe” ;-) so we went there and got a scone, some gingerbread and a couple of chicken salad sandwiches to share while we watched a workshop called “Dressing Mr. Darcy”, which demonstrated all the layers of clothing a gentleman would wear. 

After that was the much-anticipated Regency style show, which did not disappoint. 

 

After this was a side-saddle demonstration.  The speaker discussed the origins of side-saddle riding and the development of the saddle itself.  We just loved watching her on the horse in her beautiful riding outfit!

 

After that, we watched another favorite, the Pistol Duel re-enactment.  These men were informative and very funny.  We learned that a man could demand a duel if he was called a “cheat”, a “coward” or a “blackguard”, which meant rascal.  So, the main speaker explained that the night before, while they were playing cards, he accused another man of being a cheat.  When that man didn’t hit him, he called him a coward, so he was challenged to the duel.  :-D 

 

One of things that was interesting to me was how many men were at the festival.  I figured the women would outnumber the men, which they did, but there were lots more men there than I thought.  And of those men, many of them – the majority – were in costume, too.  Very surprising!  Of course, this costume didn’t count:

Seeing all the visitors and festival hosts in their Regency costumes was so interesting. We saw a wide variety of costumes, from simple to very elaborate. 

 

On the way out, we passed these young men, who were the same men who had performed the pistol duel re-enactment.  When we asked a lady if she could take our picture with them, her response was “Capital!”  :-)

We couldn’t leave without grabbing a couple of souvenirs: a lovely sugar bowl

…. a-a-a-n-n-n-d-d-d …

A bit much?  Nah – I didn’t think so either.  :-)

Summer 2012 – Part 1

I don’t know how many parts this is going to be … maybe only 1 … but I do know that we’ve had an action-packed summer so far and I haven’t blogged hardly any of it!  We’ve managed to take lots of pictures, though, so I’m relying on those to help me document what we’ve been up to.  So, here is a recap of our summer so far, in no particular order.

Kittens!

On May 11th, our kitty Violet had a litter of kittens.  The girls were sure she  was pregnant. I wasn’t so sure, but what do I know about pregnant cats?  Not much, apparently.  In my defense, she was very small – understandably, since she only had 2 kittens.  Here is a picture of her taken 2 days before she had them. 

She is on the left – I think Bentley (aka “Dad”) looks fatter than she does!  The kittens are healthy – one girl “Lily” and a boy “Basil”.  Here is Basil, sleeping next to his mama:

and here is Lily:

Yes, they are cute and have been lavished with love and attention since their arrival.  Anyone want a kitten?  :-)

Family!

Back in June, Jennifer & Steve and their crew came to stay with us for 5 days.  They have bought a new house, but couldn’t take possession before they needed to move out of their house, which sold very quickly (2 weeks!). So they have been between homes for a couple of weeks now (almost a month!) and won’t be able to move into their new home until the end of July.  They stayed with us, the Orrs, Steve’s parents, friends from church, and now they are at Mom and Dad’s, probably until they move into their new house. 

We did a little bit of musical beds/sleeping bags to get everyone situated, but I think everyone settled in quite comfortably.  The kids were thrilled with the adventure, Jennifer and I were a formidable team in the kitchen, and Trent & Alyssa entertained each other, as toddlers tend to do.

Drought

Unfortunately, this has also been one of the driest summers on record.  There has been record heat – several days over 100 degrees – and record lack of rain.  June was the driest June on record.  I recently read that more than half of the US is in some stage of drought.  I’ve never seen the corn as low as it is this summer. Our grass is crackly and brown – like most lawns. Any rain we’ve gotten has been very welcome, but brief, which is why I’ve grabbed the camera the few times it has managed to rain.  Here is Trent playing in a rare puddle after a recent rain. Notice all the brown grass.

He was really fascinated by the water dripping down the window.  :-)

Water coming out of the down spout – AMAZING!

OK – that’s all for now.  More later!

“Happy Hollisters and the Merry-Go-Round Mystery”

The Happy Hollisters is a wonderful series of books by Jerry West about a mystery-solving family.  The books were published in the 1950s and a dear friend gave us his entire collection, which he had collected when he was a boy.  We have since been able to add to the collection as we have found a few more at used bookstores.  These books have been enjoyed by all of our readers, and have also been shared with the kids’ cousins.  Sarah has been enjoying them for the past few months and I predict Brooke won’t be far behind her.