Festival Fun!

Yesterday we went to the Life is Good festival in a fairly far away location.  The festival is the charitable side arm of the Tshirt company of the same name.  I went for a few reasons.  First off, one of the many musical acts was The Fresh Beat Band who are beloved by 3 of my 4 kids at home.  Secondly, I had the opportunity to hear the young owner of Life is Good speak at an event I attended for work and I found him to be enthusiastic and inspiring.  I want my kids to believe they can make a difference and when you see a young person doing that and having fun doing that, it is a really beautiful thing. 100 per cent of the festival profits go to help children whose lives have been touched by trauma, whether that is through illness or violence.

There were reasons I could have opted out.  The tickets were pretty expensive.  I did not know how to get there and hate to drive long distances because of my headaches. I knew managing Chet's autistic issues in a venue of that size would be um, challenging.  But we went. and it was amazing and worth it.

Because we arrived early in the day, the kids actually got to see the Life Is Good owner Jacob and his brother who were making the rounds of the vendor tents.  I thought Rob's jaw was going to scrape the ground when he saw a guy dressed uber casually in cargo shorts, t shirt and cool hat and learned who he was.  Jacob always dresses like that, that is the same way he looked when he spoke to thousands of housing industry folks too. LOL

The festival has a tremendous green effort too with recycling, composting and trash bins all located everywhere around the venue. Volunteers were stationed there to make sure that the correct receptacle was used.  My Chet was ecstatic to see this as environmental awareness is his passion.

The music was great and we saw the band the kids love so much.  This part was hard for Chet as the music, which is really a cacophany of noise to him as he can not filter out crowds, music and other background noise began to overwhelm him.  First his head goes from side to side.  (When he was little he would stand in a doorway and do that and bang it on either side of the door casings till we intervened.) Next his whole body would begin to kind of jerk back and forth.  We were way in the back which was not optimal viewing but what I knew was the only way he could handle this.  The set was only an hour which was just about his outer limits for holding it together and then we began to walk the grounds. We could enjoy other musical acts as we walked around.  Mellow jazz strains filtered through the afternoon at one point and Rob recognized the artist as someone his piano teacher really enjoys.

There were games to play, face painting, an obstacle course and much much more.We had to leave by 3 because the littles were really tired and we had a long drive home and had to get back and let our poor pooch out.  (K was at work all day)  Truly, Life is Good!!