Day 7 of Our Trip to Vermont: The Last Brown Bug Lunch Series Performance

The last Brown Bag performance of the week was Gary Dulabaum.  When Grace was just three years old Gary called Grace up on stage to sing with him.  This was Grace's very first performance at the Festival (she sang You're A Grand Old Flag).  Gary has always remembered Grace and every year since then he has called her up on stage to perform some songs with him!  This year Grace, Jack and Eve all performed together.  It was the perfect ending to the Festival week in Middlebury.

Day 7 of Our Trip to Vermont: Middlebury's Fifth Annual Arts Walk

Another one of my favorite moments from our trip to Vermont happened on our last evening there.  We participated in Middlebury's Arts Walk.  The Art Walk showcased the works of local artists, craftspeople, architects and designers in the college town.  In the picture above, Jack and Eve are creating their own masterpieces along Middlebury's Main Street using chalk.   :)

Grace and Eve look on as one local artist creates a beautiful chalk drawing.  He was so happy to invite Grace, Jack and Eve to join him!

Here are Eve and the artist discussing their favorite colors together.  

Grace and Eve creating art! 

Jack and Eve admiring the artist's beautiful chalk drawing depicting a Vermont farm and the Green Mountains.

Grace, Jack and Eve working together.

The Art Walk encouraged people to wander from shops to galleries in the town of Middlebury.  Grace loved reading about all of the stops along the Art Walk trail.  Grace became our tour guide and showed us where the various art stops were located!

Grace followed the map and led us to through the Community College of Vermont building to a local artist's workshop.  Here is Grace showing Eve the way!

Grace and Eve were particularly taken with this little art studio and with all of the oil pastel paintings.  Both girls noticed that the artist used purple in all of her paintings!  We later found out from the artist herself that the girls were right -- purple was her favorite color.

Jack loved all of the painted pianos that were outside throughout the town.  Here he is admiring one of the painted pianos but he was quite surprised to find that there were no keys!

Day 6 of Our Trip to Vermont: The Little Leger Trio!

My favorite moment at the Festival on the Green was this....when Grace, Jack and Eve all sang together on stage!  The performers that day were the No Strings Marionette company.  Before they began their show they asked if anyone in the audience would like to join them on stage to sing a song.  Both Grace and Jack raised their hands together and were called up on stage.  Well, my little Eve was certainly not going to be left out!!  Eve promptly stood right up and followed her big brother and sister right up on that stage to sing too.  Grace, Jack and Eve ended up singing three songs together.  It was incredibly sweet!  Here are some pictures of their performance....

 A girl duet!

 Jack takes the lead!

 Gracie!

 

Day 5 of Our Trip to Vermont: Grace on Stage!

Grace, Jack and Eve were extra excited for this day of the Festival because Steven Gratto was performing.  We have seen him perform at the Festival for the past two years.  Here is a description of Steven Gratto:

Juggler, unicyclist, fire eater, stilt walker, rope walker, hatchet thrower, balloon sculptor and balancer, Stephen Gratto is a physical comedian and much more. All performances are fast-paced and exciting displays of classic vaudeville and circus skills including many feats of daring, bravery, and side-splitting foolishness. Almost every portion of the Stephen Gratto Variety Show involves audience volunteers, both young and old. This interaction keeps everyone involved and laughing.

Grace was extremely excited to be called on stage to be a volunteer to stand while Steven Gratto and his son rode a unicycle in-between a line of children!

Here are some pictures of Grace on stage...

Steven Gratto asked the "cute little girl in pink" to cover her eyes as he uni-cycled back through the line!!!!

On this day, Grace's picture appeared in the local newspaper.  I'll post that later!  This was such a fun performance for all of us to watch. 

Day 4 of Our Trip to Vermont: Fun at the Festival

Here are Grace, Jack and Eve standing on the side of the stage before the Brown Bag lunch performance began.

My sweet Gracie girl

Every day we arrived early to the Festival because Grace volunteered to work.  Grace, Jack and Eve enjoyed this "quiet time" before the performances began to watch the performer(s) warm up.

Gracie volunteering at the Festival!

Catching Up...

My goodness...it has been awhile since I last posted!  Last week was just one of those busy weeks and I didn't find myself with too much extra time for blogging.  Grace and Jack attended camp at Broadturn Farm this past week and we were busy in the evenings taking care of the garden beds at Grace's school.  It is SO hard to believe that we are approaching mid August.  Where has the summer gone?  Grace will be going to school at the end of this month and Jack is attending preschool three morning per week beginning in September.   Wow!  I have so much to post about and I am quickly falling behind with getting everything in.  I'll do my best these next few weeks getting caught up (I still haven't posted about Grace's dance recital, which was back in MAY!).  Meanwhile, I am trying to enjoy every second of what we have left of summer.  :)

 

Day 3 of Our Trip to Vermont: The Festival on the Green Begins!

We were SO excited for Monday afternoon to arrive because it meant the beginning of Middlebury's Festival on the Green's Brown Bag lunch series!  I have been attending the Festival on the Green with my parents and brother since I was a little girl.  I look forward to this event every summer and I love continuing this summer tradition with my own children.  The Brown Bag lunch series opened with Rik Palieri, a folksinger and singer songwriter.  Rik took us through a musical journey around the world and our very own Gracie girl was so lucky to be called up on stage to help Rik with one of his songs!  Grace accompanied Rik by making a limberjack doll dance during one of his songs.  What fun!

Families are invited to bring their lunch and eat during the performances.  Here is a picture of Jack enjoying a bowl of blueberries before the performance began!  He was so very excited for the Festival to begin!

Here is our sweet little Eve enjoying eating some of the blueberries while she waited for the performance to begin.  While Eve was in Vermont, Maddy kept telling Eve that she has "blueberry eyes."  Every since then Eve thinks it is SO funny to put blueberries over her eyes and tell everyone how she has "blueberry eyes!"

Grace volunteered to work at every Brown Bag lunch performance and during one of the evening performances as well.  Grace was given a name tag and went around to everyone in the audience to ask if they wanted to sign up for a free raffle.  This was such a great job for Grace since she was able to meet so many new people, to read what their names were and to find out where they lived.....absolutely perfect for my Grace!  :)

I love this picture of Jack as he is intently watches Rik Palieri perform. 

Here is Eve watching Rik perform.  She loved all of his music and musical instruments from around the world!

Day 3 of Our Trip to Vermont: Fun at the Ilsley Public Library

We LOVE Middlebury's Ilsley Public library.  Every summer we look forward to attending their fabulous story times, their Itsy Bitsy yoga class and playing in their wonderful children's area.  We enjoyed spending our morning here before the Festival on the Green began later that afternoon.

Jack enjoyed building the library's longest train!!!

Eve loved playing with the trains at the train table!

 

 Grace enjoyed making beautiful beaded bracelets for all of us with Maddy.