A really busy weekend!

This weekend was super busy! Saturday Evan and Collin had a chess tournament to qualify for state. They did not qualify, but there is one more chance in a couple weeks so everyone cross your fingers!

There are an unbelievable amount of kids that play chess, I genuinely had no idea. Here are a few shots from yesterdays "action". Parents are not allowed to watch the tournment and there are long waits between matches, but it was ok, because Katie was there, and the boys spent all of their free time playing outside on the playground, in spite of our unusually crappy weather. It rained, and misted, and was just down right chilly yesterday for some reason.

The Catalina mountains were gorgeous though.

  If you get to your table first, you get to use your own chess set. This seemed to be rather exciting for some kids. Evan didn't seem to care one way or the other. But he's a pretty chill kid.

 Collin is also in third grade, but he is an old pro, he's been playing in tournaments since kindergarten! He was happy to show his cousin the ropes this year though. They both seem to have a really great time together. Usually Terry and Shawn take the boys to these all day events, but Shawn was on call for work this weekend, and so Katie and I went.

 This is half of half of the room that was being utilized for this tournament. Like I said, lots of kids around here play chess. There were four games per table.

Sunday was the Tucson Festival of Books. Which I love! This year, I didn't plan well, and so there wasn't really much time to see it all. But that's ok. I enjoy it anyway. So many authors and talks, and events. It's a really fun event.

Kira loves it too. And so we met up with Brie and Avery, saw Nonie for a bit, and hung out with Katie and her little guys. Evan and Collin opted out. They declared it "boring and lame".

 Miss Avery just chillin'.

Kira and I checked out the sun spots and solar flares on this telescope. Pretty cool!

Over in the kids area, Kira, Della and Liam made brain hats. Kira was all about them, and helped the little kids make theirs too. Here they are modeling.

 Kira promptly ditched hers in the bottom of the stroller, but kudos to her for taking a pic with her little cousins huh? :) 

Kira also had a wonderful experience meeting an author today after first discovering a book with her name being used for the main character. Spelled the same. She whipped out her cash so fast after she saw that. I don't even know if she cared what the book was even about at that point.

The publisher told us the author would be back by the booth later, so we wandered some more and then headed back to see if we could meet her.

She showed up right about the same time as we did, and she was wonderful to Kira.


Sharon Skinner (who as far as I am aware is not a relative of mine, but that is my maiden name, and we have an *enormous* family, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility), took a picture with Kira, signed her book and took time to talk to her. So thank you so much for making my little girls day today!

So, it was a great time, even with a few misadventures from Katie's kids. (Della took all the prices off a velcro menu at a food booth and was rearranging them, Liam made an entire table of books tip over in a domino effect and then simultaneously dumped most of a 20oz bottle of Sprite in the seat of his stroller.)

Good weekend. Great company. And my girl is one happy chic right now. Love good weekends!